Izakaya Gazen — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I've just found this place the best for weekend drinking. All their appetizers seem to be exotic visually and in taste. I feel their food tastes deep in true Japanese style. As appetizers of my choice on a particular day, Sashimi (Omakase Platter 3 Kinds) was so so in taste & quality but their Creamy Tofu tasted awesome. I thought the tofu dish could be served with noodles too. The tofu dish gave me a totally new taste experience. Very excited!

Next, I had A5 Imported Japanese Wa-gyu Beef Seiromushi Steam Shabushabu, and it's propably the best shabu shabu I've ever had. Not only the beef tasted extremely amazing, but it also gave me a new food experience in that shabushabu is cooked in steam, not in broth. On the contrary to my initial worries, it never tasted fishy but ultimately juicy and tender. Protein is not digested in our oral cavity, as far as I know, so I suspected they added a proteinase that could entirely break down this beef in my saliva even before it got into my gut. It melted down in my mouth!! Btw, they provided shabushabu sauce in classic style which is also in my favorite style. Authentic! I should've requested Egg Yolk + Ponzu sauce (I'm not sure if it's indeed possible or not there) as I can tell the shabu shabu will also taste great with it.

I ordered Salmon and Ikura Chazuke instead of Udon as the finale of Japanese style drinking day. It was not quick and easy to make the choice. It was sort of a big experiment for me. But, the new trial turned out to be a complete success~ Amazing! Btw, I momentarily thought scorched rice could also have been added in that broth.

They do have a variety of sake glasses (a shot). Many of them also seem to be soft, including those I had.

I think Izakaya Gazen is the right place in the heart of downtown LA to enjoy greatest gourmet appetizers for drinking, the tastes of which are in deep Japanse flavours. For sure, this place has become my best shabu shabu spot in California. Price is reasonable!

최상급 와규 샤부샤부 매우 맛있음. 스팀식 조리법은 매우 신선함. 우려했던 것과 다르게 비린맛 안나고 대신 육즙이 장난아님. 육즙은 밑에 깔려있는 야채와 버섯으로 스며들기도 함. 샤부샤부에 한해서는 최상급 와규는 샤부샤부 수프에 끓여먹는 것보다 스팀으로 먹어야 더 좋은 것 같다고 느끼게 됨. 끝으로 다양한 칵테일식 사케가 많아서 좋은듯. 한편, 가볍게 먹기에는 거리가 가깝지 않는한 더...

Will NEVER go there again‼️‼️‼️ Was there for my birthday day. I wish I could go somewhere else. After looking at the menu I decided to order the most expensive one for my birthday lunch ‼️ $40 is quite a lot for lunch. The waiter told me even the menu says it come with sea urchin but we don’t serve that for lunch time. WTAT❓❓❓ They don’t even allow me to do the extra single order for sea urchin because they want to do more casual business lunch❓❓ Than why you have that on your menu❓❓❓ the price is double than other regular dishes and you don’t want ppl to order that❓❓❓ Well it’s my birthday so I don’t want to affect my good mood. So I ordered 2nd expensive one ( nigiri set ) Right after my nigiri came I took picture immediately and started to enjoy my birthday lunch . Just right after I finish the first piece and ready to take my second one OMG I saw a hair in it😱😱😱😱 So I told the waiter, he apologized and took the dish away.

The manager ( a Japanese lady) brought the dish and told me they already replaced the one has hair. Till here I still won’t leave ONE star ⭐️ for them but after this I really just want to give them ZERO ⭐️ But after this she started to give some unbelievable excuses 😠😠😠😠 She said: this is NOT sushi chef’s hair and you sit outside so might be the wind blow up the hair. Or when the waiter bring this dish and some customer’s hair just drop in it. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 Really??? It’s the way you treat you customers ❓❓❓ おもてなし？？？？unbelievable. I really want to argue with her in Japanese. I lived in Tokyo for many years and this is ridiculous. But again I didn’t cuz it’s...

Today, I came to this restaurant to eat with my friends. My feeling is that the waiter is not professional, the food is ordinary and not clean. Whether the food is good or not, I think it depends on different people.

When we arrived at this restaurant, there weren't many guests in it. There are still some empty places, but we were assigned two seats table. Food was served one after another, with a large pot of beef Shabu in the middle of the table, so Sushi is temporarily put on the cabinet, which is where they put rags on it.

So I couldn't eat Sushi right away, and finally I had to struggle to finish the beef Shabu. $48 beef Shabu is not so good. Unfortunately, it took me 10 minutes to finish the Dried beef Shabu. When I was about to eat sushi, it wasn't the freshest. The seaweed of the Gunkan sushi was moistened. Apart from Otoro and Uni, the rest of the sushi made me feel no different from Kula next door. The saddest thing is that when I wanted to pick up the scallop sushi, a fruit fly stops on it, but compare $48 Sushi to my personal health, I decided to pick first one, so now I'm sitting on the toilet typing this review.

Finally, I want to tell the waiter of this restaurant that if you know today that your table can't put down so many things at once, you can help me change to the larger table at first. If the other places are full, you can let the guests decide what to go first. Don't set aside fresh and delicious food until it's not fresh for...