Genki Izakaya 元気 — Restaurant in Fairfax

Although the atmosphere is very polished and the service was amazing, the food items in my opinion were a hit or miss.

We had a ton of items including the scallop sensation roll, hot stone wagyu, katsu curry udon, yakitori platter, and toro rice bowl. The best item we had was definitely the wagyu. They grill the wagyu in front for you and then serve it with wasabi, salt, and savory truffle sauce. In my opinion, the wasabi, salt, and beef was sooo good. Amazing bite. No words for how decadent and rich it was. The sauce sort of muffled the rich beef flavors, hence why I thought it was better without it.

The curry udon we had was decent although the different take on tonkotsu was not appreciated. They used a more wet batter to coat the pork, which is innovative but made the tonkotsu lack the crunch that normal breadcrumbs can give. The curry sauce was very light, which was good for not overwhelming us near the bottom of the bowl but combined with the udon made a very light flavor. The udon itself was very soft, which again is preference but I like a little more chew to the thick noodles.

The special scallop roll was nice. No complaints there. Nice combination of flavors and felt like a very fun tasting fish with all the fixings of roe, scallop, rice, and orher ingredients. I felt like the wasabi served with the sushi was a lot more pungent than the one they served with wagyu, or the wagyu one is real wasabi while the sushi ones are horseradish.

The toro bowl though left a lot to be desired. I ended up mixing the sauces, salt, and soy sauce into the rice to make the dish more flavorful. I think the chef was maybe trying to have us appreciate the flavors of the toro itself but the whole dish was very bland. The sauces made it a lot better and made me appreciate the dish that much more. I think I would appreciate the taste of the dishes more if it was served sushi style, but for in a bowl, I would want the rice and other ingredients to complement the dish. The fish did taste fresh though.

We also had the yakitori platter. My favorite by far was both the beef and chicken & leek. The rest like the pork belly and the chicken wings were good too, but the beef and chicken and leek felt the most flavorful. The roasted peppers were good too. I always like to have some greens on the side.

Also tried the yuzu lemonade and the kawaii tiki cat drink, but I would recommend skipping the drinks. The cat drink was strong and you definitely taste the alcohol. I might be biased since I don’t normally order drinks at restaurants. The lemonade was okay but it felt like it wasn’t worth the $10 price tag.

Overall, this place is good but it does feel like there could be more that is desired. I really do love the elevated yet casual atmosphere and the service was excellent; we were checked on frequently and the staff was very friendly. Food wise though, some of the dishes felt disappointing, which could just be because of what we chose. I just expected a lot from this place considering the large amount of positive reviews. I would maybe come back here again. It does make for a nice date spot.

If you do decide to come here, I recommend getting a reservation. It was packed here on a...

Came here for dinner on a Sunday evening. We were able to get reservations for 8pm and it was busy when we arrived about 30 minutes early, but they were able to seat us early.

Parking in a nearby garage (4 hr max but it was free). Limited street parking in front of the restaurant, but Google maps wasn’t helpful on where to park as it still shows the area under construction 😆

All staff that we encountered were friendly and attentive. Our server, Timothy, was super nice and helpful. Since we have never been, he explained the different parts of the menu and how big/small the plates would be and if items were shareable or a main dish. We kept the menu the entire time we ate as we could order in increments depending how full we were getting since this place specializes in shareable smaller plates (like Spanish tapas).

We ordered: Drinks: Ichigo Cloud (Spirited Away art on top) & the Genki Punch (a mocktail) Small plates: Torched Sea Fatty Salmon, Cream Coquette, Mentaiko Udon, and the bluefin Tuna Foie Gras with Uni. For skewers, we chose: eel, eringi, shishito, and gyu-harami. For desserts: Matcha Crepe cake & Taiyaki with Ube ice cream.

The skewers were delicious but the star was the eringi (king mushroom). It looked like a fat scallop but had a hearty texture. One of us a mushroom lover and the other isn’t but both of us loved it!

We didn’t want to order too much sushi as we eat sushi a lot and wanted to focus on dishes we couldn’t normally get elsewhere, but we would be remiss if we didn’t order the Torched Sea Fatty Salmon & Bluefin Tuna Foie Gras with Uni. The salmon being our favorite of the two, but both were excellent in taste and complexity of flavors.

The Cream Croquette was heavenly and the reason we went to the gym before coming to dinner. A potato and crab fried patty doesn’t do this dish justice when describing it. Fried to perfection this patty could stand alone as a delicious dish, but lay it on top of melty cheesy corn - omg, so good. My husband had cheese all over his beard - he loved it so much. Personal hygiene aside, it was on to the Mentaiko Udon. A creamy sauce over udon noodles was delicious and made me wonder why I didn’t bring my Lactaid pills. These two dishes were our “heavier” dishes and filling. We didn’t need to order an entree after these two (& all our previous small plates).

We did leave room for dessert. I ordered the red bean Taiyaki and tonight I had a choice of either matcha or ube ice cream. Since we were also getting the matcha crepe cake, I got the ube ice cream. I’m not a big fan of matcha, but my husband who got the matcha crepe cake loved it- so many layers of matcha between crepe layers. Something he’s never had but enjoyed it. I love my fried red bean taiyaki and the ube ice cream was sweet but not too sweet. A perfect ending to our anniversary dinner! I look forward to coming back to try many...

I came here for dinner as a double date party and I had pretty high expectations but tbh the food fell much short of my expectations. Makes sense because they have a gigantic menu and with so many items nothing can be very good.

We got:

ube fries: 7/10 - was tasty but the honey mustard type of aioli didn't fit it too well in my opinion.

ikageso karaage: 5/10 - pretty oily and heavy. It would have been better if it was just the textured squid legs, made super crispy and light. I don't know why "izakayas" in America can't get this right :(

yakitori (chicken thigh, pork belly, gizzard): 8/10. These were probably my favorite thing from the entire meal. Pretty good flavor and texture, most authentic I've had outside of Japan.

bluefin tuna with foie gras and uni: 3/10. I had much higher expectations for this considering it's hefty price tag. The fish was very mid, couldn't tell it's quality. The uni and foie gras completely melded into one flavor and was overpowered by the tuna and truffle oil. The uni wasn't fresh either, my boyfriend is Japanese and he knows what old uni tastes like (has a sort of poopy taste). This was reallyyyy disappointing.

mentaiko udon: 6/10. This was relying heaaavily on the cream and not enough flavor from the mentaiko. The udon was slightly overcooked too. Still, edible.

tornado omelet: 4/10. The omelet part was good, the curry sauce was tasty but there wasn't enough of it. The "fried rice" that came underneath it all was SUCH a travesty. Such weird mushy rice! What is that!? Why do people like this?

sky & crumble 007: 5/10. Not enough fish. Very cucumber heavy. For a special roll, this was disappointing. We are ariake fans :(

yakisoba: 7/10. This was okay - a little salty but still better than our other dishes tbh. Still not very authentic though.

matcha crepe cake: 8/10. This was yummy, relies heavily on the cream but still tasty.

tiramisu: 9/10: this was great. Comes in a layered cup and was very flavorful.

yuzu cheesecake: 9/10: we got this for free on the house because of my friends boyfriends birthday. Which was very nice of them. The flavor was great, we loved the yuzu zest worked into the cheesecake.

Ichigo cloud cocktail: 9/10. This was yummy and not too sweet. I got it for the pretty picture but the taste was better than I expected.

Service was pretty spotty as well and ambiance was like insane bar setting. Felt like we had to yell to hear each other because the music was insanely loud.

This place has much to improve on in my opinion. Id only be back for the drinks, yakitori, and desserts. But that's probably not enough for me to want to come back. For tasty food id rather go to southeast impression down the block if I'm gonna be driving out to...