Izakaya-Wa — Restaurant in Houston

Times like this where I really appreciate that these kind of places do exist in Houston. It reminds me the essence of not being in Houston, like a mini escape. Why? It's tucked away and you really have to look for it. The service is absolutely fun. The menu is absolutely overwhelming and you should take a look at it before because it is going to take you awhile to go through it. It's extensive, but not all is great. The waitress was really informative and knows the menu well indicating that she is into Japanese food or she worked here for quite some time. EIther way, I appreciate that she doesn't have to check if they have toro or not (trust me, it gets annoying). First and foremost, she informed me that they use two different types of pork when they do the skewers. The tontoro is of a higher grade and gets sold out quick. Thus, it was unfortunate that my friend and I didn't get to try it, but here's what we ordered: Strawberry Nigori = $17 Toro Sashimi = $25 Hamachi Carpaccio = $14 2 Uni Nigiri = $12 2 Chopped Hotate (Spicy) = $6 Beef Filet Mignon Skewers = $7.20 Tsukimi Udon = $9 Chocolate Parfait = $6 Total w/ tax = $104.14 This place is much better than Uchi. There, I said it. I am much happier leaving Izakaya Wa than Uchi. They told us the regulars come back to see them. The Strawberry Nigori was a rice wine sake. It was smooth and sweet. It was strawberry flavored, but it's not those obnoxious, obvious fake flavoring. It married well with the sake. Sometimes sake is a bit overhwelming for me because I'm not into sake. This, however, is the gateway for a newb like me. Onto to the food... Toro Sashimi. Literally, this fish is like butter. It melts in your mouth and it is grade A fish. The server told me that they don't have it often because the chef wants to make sure it of the finest quality. They only had it this week. Lucky me! With a bit of soy sauce and a bit of wasabi, nothing can go wrong. Hamachi Carpaccio. Truth be told, I haven't had any good hamachi appetizer until today. The ratio of the soy sauce and the paper thin sliced of jalapeno provided a slight flavor to the fresh fish. MUST TRY. The uni (typical taste and the rice wasn't hard) and chopped hotate (has masago and a spicy component which I couldn't identify) is mediocre. The beef filet skewers were a miss for us because mine was cooked medium rare and my friend was a medium well. Yeah, we're picky about these kind of things. The good thing about it is there is no toughness to these meat. They tear/give when you bite into it. This just indicates the quality of the meat. Not much falvoring to it. I see that they ground some sort of green then grilled it with the meat or applied after the meat is grilled. A pinch salt and pepper would be nice to finish. I doubt I would order it again, but it's not bad. Tsukimi Udon Noodles. The highlight of it all. I'm just so impressive by this, it's crazy. First of all, the egg. It's only a raw yolk. The radish is grounded/crushed then when you poke your chopsticks at it, it's a light and fluffy consistency. The raw yolk is on top of this white fluffliness to give you the impression that it's a sunny-side up egg. I'm mindblown! Who thinks of this? Sorry, I'm easily impressed. The broth is translucent, but flavorful. The noodle has got to be hand-pulled or some mad s**t like that. It's cooked at the perfect temperature. The noodles is soft, but it has the bite to it. If that isn't enough, it's totally slurpable. Not a word, but I'm using it. I'm really coming for this. I'm probably dreaming of it tonight. The chocolate parfait is pretty actually. I was thinking of the typical american dessert where it's too sweet and overwhelming. They served this with chocolate whip cream which I opt out. It has chocolate pudding, ice cream, and chocolate wafers. The chocolater wafers was really surprising because it was unexpected. This made the pudding less boring because you have the cruchiness, the chocolate pudding, and the ice cream. Okay dessert, but the dessert...

This review is a bit overdue, but had to leave one for the safety of everybody. Long story short, I choked on Eel bone for the whole day. So the long story is that my husband and I were regulars before the hurricane disaster happened and went back on Oct 17th 2017 hearing they were open again for business. As usual we ordered from the lunch menu and I had ordered the handroll combo lunch which consisted of couple handrolls and one of it was the EEL HR . I took the first bite, chewed it and swallowed. As I was swallowing I felt a sharp pain in my throat and knew that it was a fish bone. Thinking that it should just go down with another bite I ate only rice and tried to make it go down. Nope. More I swallowed it was hurting me. I tried everything from drinking water and taking another bite of some rice from the handroll. Nope, it was still there & I was in pain. Everytime I talked or opened my mouth the bone was poking my throat. I informed the waiter, and asked him to give me a bowl of rice because there is an eel bone in my throat. He brought a bowl of rice and gave me a pity look with “Oh, I’m so sorry”. I told him I’m hoping that this will go down with some rice. Basically I ate a whole bowl of rice, without chewing to see if the bone stuck would go down but no luck. I was pretty much in pain, and a bit in a panic. We had to leave to go back to work, waiter brought us the check with everything on the bill. I had to tell him that I can’t pay for my meal since I choked on the first bite of my food and couldn’t even enjoy or eat half of it. I had to throw up later because I ate too much of the “rice”. Then he took our check away said we didn’t have to pay for our meal and that he hopes that we would be back after this incident. This all happened around 1-1:30 pm. So at 9PM that day, I was still in pain, the bone was still in my throat. Now hurting me even more. I asked my husband to see if he can see the bone in my throat. Yes. IT’s DANGEROUS but at this point I didn’t want to go to the ER, we used a SPOON, a Flashlight & a tweezer to get the bone out of my throat. YES MY HUSBAND reached in to take it out with a TWEEZER. I literally broke down crying because I was extremely upset it had ruined my whole day and was in pain because of this stupid Bone. Also… because the BONE WAS ALMOST HALF AN INCH LONG and STUCK IN MY THROAT THE WHOLE FREAKIN DAY!!! What made us even more upset was that we actually went back to Izakaya Wa exactly 1 week after all this. It was a different waiter, but I asked him to tell the manager that I’m the person that was here last week that had an EEL BONE STUCK IN MY THROAT. ALL HE SAID WAS “OH, I’LL TELL THE MANAGER”. & he just left and That was it. No other apologies or anything and manager didnt come to talk to us. As a regular customer I really felt like no one genuinely cared that their customer was in pain because of their mistake. Yes, I know they’re REALLY POPULAR and a HOT place in Houston. Their food is great! But Really? No formal apologies or any kind of compensation for something that I could’ve gone to an ER for? I will highly likely not eat there anymore. I really loved their food, but after all this incident I was very disappointed in how they handled this situation and all the distress I was in. I love eating out and never in my life had a trauma from a restaurant but I guess there is a first time for everything. Hope this doesn’t happen to anybody else and their chefs really need to pay attention deboning their eels.

Im attaching a picture of the bone that came out...

As of this point and time, this is my favorite Japanese restaurant in Houston right now. Everything from the food, the service, the atmosphere, makes this place the feel of what a Japanese restaurant should feel like. First of all, the location may be a bit confusing for first timer or a bit awkward as that area of Memorial Drive is not really known for Japanese population or fancy restaurants. Even on the sign for this restaurant displays the word "Japanese Tapas" so non-Japanese food experts could understand the primary concept of the restaurant better.

But as you enter the restaurant, the whole atmosphere will hit your face and you'll be amazed by it. As soon as you walk in, there should be a waitstaff who will either take your name down (since it's a small restaurant, there may be wait time) or lead you to your table. Once you are being walked to your table, the staff will greet you in Japanese. You'll notice the lighting ambience, the decor, Japanese Batman poster, and even the feel of the low ceiling may give you the vibe of being in an authentic Japanese restaurant. Then there's also a good view of an open back patio that I have not seen being used at this point.

The server will give you a regular menu and a special menu. This restaurant is all about the yakitori (grilled skewers or the panko breading fried skewers), the traditional Japanese food such as curry, onigiri (triangle rice ball), and fresh sushi. If you are getting the skewers, I would recommend trying the panko breaded sampler just to try out the various meat and vegetables first. But so far everything on the menu has been nothing but delicious based on what I've tried. When you're done eating the skewer, you put the skewer into a community cup on the side so the waitstaff can easily clean the table up to make room for more food.

Now the price may be a bit on the high side for some people but I feel like this place is worth every penny of it. This place is also a good place to bring a date to. Now again, this restaurant is really popular so either get here early during dinner time or come a bit late like 1 hour before closing. I do believe they take reservation so you could always do that. This place is really highly recommended by me, you will not be...