Wakasan

A lot has been said about Wakasan. Some people are quasi obsessive followers of this hole in the wall Izakaya on Westwood Blvd, while others can't seem to accept what they view to be an excessively stringent adherence to traditionalist Japanese food. While the latter couldn't be further from the truth I'll be the first to admit that Wakasan isn't for the casual sushi eater. It isn't a sushi bar at all. I like to think of Wakasan as almost a private club in which Wakasan himself holds court at the bar leading a brigade of Japanese chef's that can and do give the top Japanese chef's in the city a run for their money.

This is where the Japanese chef's go to eat after work. This is where you sit at the table and a hush falls over the room when Mr. Nozawa the sushi Nazi himself walks into the room and you happily slurp noodles side by side. This is where a certain breed of foodie/drinker comes to indulge in both of their preferred activities.

I try to make it out to Wakasan at least once a week, but sometimes I end up making the trip more often then that. Not only because I love the food and I love the drunken late night conversation with Taku, Wakasan's son, but they serve food late. I'm talking past midnight late. Take that Taco Bell 4th Meal.....

So tonight was special. We were out with good friends introducing them to a favorite restaurant and we had a special bottle of sake. Kubota Hekiju, is a Junmai Daiginjo sake from Niigata. The sister sake to Kubota Manjyu, the Hekiju offered everthing I was hoping a premium sake would. With tons of floral aroma and a bit of vanilla on the palate.


So let's start with the food. A brief note on pictures, while Wakasan is a darling in the blogger world we have built a personal relationship with the staff there and don't want to disrespect them or their food. They a) don't understand the blog hype b) we all think it's distracting when we see a blogger with their notepad and photo-shoot setup at the table. This is dinner not a school report. and c) frankly too many pictures of everything is distracting to the goal of everyone in the restaurant getting drunk and having a great time. That being my long winded explanation for the fact that yours truly got too drunk to remember to take a lot of pictures. Oh but the ones I did take....

1st Round:
(I like to order in rounds not courses at Wakasan as we end up staying for a while so we try to pace it out)

A Sashimi Plate which included: Tuna, Red Snapper, Yellow Tail, Amber Jack, and Rock Cod.
Followed by, now please forgive the lack of pictures...

Hamachi Kama - Grilled Yellow tail Collar....Awesome...Wakasan is a grill master...

Also grilled were the Tukune, chicken meatballs served with a raw egg dipping sauce...I found a picture here in another blog entry about Wakasan. This is actually the blog in which I first found out about this restaurant so I guess I owe the author a debt of gratitude. This is her new blog, check it out....

We were also served a speciality of the restaurant, Tamagoyaki, Egg Omelet with Beef tendon and yam cake. Mindblowingly good. For some reason when I eat this I'm transported back to the breakfast table mixing my eggs with ketchup, food takes us strange and happy places sometimes...

To finish out round one we went with some deep fried whitefish with ponzu. A simple close to the opening salvo.

At this point we had some thinking to do. I knew we would be ordering some of my favorite off menu items like the beef shortrib and the udon "vongole," but when I asked Taku for something different and new that I hadn't tried I thought we might get something weird like fish innards or raw beef, which we did have and was killer, but what we got was better than I could have even dreamed up.

Duck and Foie Gras nabe.I've had their kamo(duck)-nabe before. And fellow blogger Kevineats had some with his recent Wakasan meal, but this was special. On my previous visit I had been shown the lobe of duck foie sitting in the fridge and wondered what they would possibly do with it. While many people know of Hiro Urasawa's use of foie in Shabu Shabu, I'd never seen it pre-seared before. In fact I was worried that somehow doing this would cause the foie to loose some flavor. Boy was I wrong. We let one small piece of foie dissolve into the broth "for flavor" and than went at it full bore. Duck green onion and foie. Killer...

At this point we were pretty well full and pretty hammered. We'd already been there for 3 hours and the restaurant was starting to empty. My favorite time to be there. We killed the bottle of Kubota with the staff than moved on to Sochu. Feeling that if I was going to throw up because I was too drunk I might as well go out in style I had Taku get me to final "shime" dishes. Tempura shrimp over rice with the most amazing sauce, and raw octopus with pickled wasabi root. Bar non one of the best and slimiest drinking snacks I've ever encountered.

We asked for some kind of desert and we were delivered a wonderful green tea crepes with strawberries inside and blueberries on top. Perfect.

Wakasan is an ask and you shall receive restaurant. The chef's have tons of the freshest ingredients on hand and aim to please. A note on the menu. Forget the printed menu, use it only as a guide but rely on your server. They know better than you. Wakasan and team took amazing care of us and obviously we'll be there again soon. I'm there all the time, I'm the big goofy American eating all the weird stuff.

Wakasan
1929 Westwood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
(310) 446-5241