Hakata Izakaya HERO — Restaurant in Los Angeles

*Delayed post from June ‘25

I came here to celebrate a friend's birthday after visiting Japan for a month earlier this year. While the prices here are crazy high in comparison to izakayas over there, the quality of the food at Hakata Izakaya was outstanding, despite long wait times to be served the various dishes we ordered. Our party of 3 arrived at 8pm on a Friday and spent over 1.5 hours since it became busier as the night went on.

The Karage, or Japanese Fried Chicken, was well battered and featured dark meat, keeping the chicken moist and tasty, while allowing for an intense crispy on the outside. There were a few pieces of cartilage that snuck in though, so be careful when biting in. We also ordered Teba Gyo, Chicken Wings that are stuffed with chives and heavily seasoned with black pepper on the outside. The flavors oddly reminded me of egg rolls, but in a great way! The pork belly wrapped skewers took the longest to arrive, but were delicious. I highly recommend the chives and any of the other options that have bold flavors, as the lettuce we tried was rather simple.

Lastly we shared a pot of Shabu Shabu, which included a variety of vegetables like cabbage, carrots and mushrooms, and thin pork slices to swish around. The broth was very flavorful, but they also provided ponzu sauce to add a zing of flavor as desired. The noodles served at the very end were not my favorite, unfortunately. They reminded me more of spaghetti and less of the ramen or udon noodles I fell in love...

I had high hopes for this place, but unfortunately I was disappointed. There's a few big issues with this place. The food is not bad, but it is grossly overpriced. It averaged out to about $80 per person and nobody was full at the end of the meal. That's totally absurd for izakaya, which is supposed to be cheap and quick street food. Aside from overpriced, it took forever for the food to come out-- like a ridiculous amount of time. But don't worry, they remind you that you only have 2 hours to eat, after which you have to leave. What a nice way to start your dinner.

The second big issue is the service. The people working here are really rude. Maybe I'm spoiled because I've lived in Japan in the past, but Japan is famously welcoming and nice in its hospitality. This place was not. It felt like being in the twilight zone. Even by American standards, the people working here are rude. It's hard to get your order taken, and they kept forgetting items we asked for.

There's a bunch of nice izakaya places in Los Angeles. Somehow they manage to serve similar food for a fraction of the cost without making you feel like you're a bother to...

We cannot recommend this restaurant, unfortunately. We are a small family of three with a 3-month-old son and had chosen this place because of its good reviews and atmosphere. We arrived about 1.5 hours before closing time, when a table was still available and the restaurant did not seem too busy. Nevertheless, we were turned away and told that they were “too busy.”

To us, it felt more like they did not want families with small children. They also pointed out that having a stroller would be difficult, although we explained that ours is a compact travel stroller, foldable and easy to put aside. Still, they refused to seat us.

Afterwards, when reading through older reviews, we noticed that this does not seem to be an isolated incident. Similar experiences have been mentioned in the past, which confirms our impression. For young families, this is very important to know so they do not even waste their time trying.

We found this very disappointing, especially since our baby usually just sleeps through dinner and would not have disturbed anyone. From our perspective, it seemed unfriendly and unwelcoming toward families with...