Izakaya Sasaya 居酒屋楽楽家 — Restaurant in Los Angeles

I used to come here or get take out all the times. Maybe 10+ times in the 6 months? The food was so delicious and I recommended at least 4 groups of friends here. Some of them drive all the way from SGV or even Riverside. However I have had the worst experience ever today. The server was so rude and she refused to serve us because she assumed that we were gonna tip her less than 10%( but before we put down the tips????). We walked in and the server was busy so we waited a few minutes before she was able to check our vaccination card. I showed my e-vaccination card and she requested my ID. I have been to other places where they didn't really request IDs so I said "usually i don't have I ID checked with the E-vaccination card on my phone". The server insisted and I showed my ID. We got seated and started to order on the iPad. The contactless order asked us to tip before placing the order. We were about to type in custom tips, probably a little less than 15%, because we got grumpy waiting in the beginning. The server suddenly walked up and said "I know you don't like me (me???????) but if you do custom tips I refuse to serve you. (?????) We are very busy right now so I you won't get served." And she walked away. I was so shocked at that moment and I had like 1000 questions in my head. She came back 5 minutes later and asked us to leave because she was too busy and she said that she saw us typing $5 which was not true. She said I being rude for the ID thing and assumed that we were gonna gave her $5 tip for revenge. In the first place, as customers, we tip based on the service and we can tip whatever we want. We were not greeted and had to wait because the restaurant had only one server so we didn't expect much service if we had stayed. But the server has no right to demand for 15% tips before customers placing the orders. In the second place, the server didn't even see how much food we ordered and we have not place the order or finished putting any tips yet. She argued that she has not provided the service yet. However, wasn't the service start the minute you walked into the restaurant? In the end she kept refusing to serve us and asked us to leave and don't waste her time. (Hello my time is also valuable!) We were really hungry and really wanted to eat so we had to find another place. Foodies, I suggest order take out/delivery for this restaurant but if you are generous tipping like me for the bad service go ahead. I love this restaurant a lot but I'm afraid of walking in again now. Sasaya: Hire more ppl please! Only one server is probably not enough if you are so popular and busy. I don't like writing reviews and I never write bad reviews because of the service. A lot of places serve good food but bad service but I still like going. But I never get refused ever in my life. I think the server just does not like me. I'm really sad for my experience today. Maybe if I had my ID ready at the beginning the story will end...

Have you ever earten to within an inch of your life? and then gone beyond that? Maguro don, appetizer platter, large takoyaki appetizer, wakame salad, drinks, avocado boat. Not bad for a hungry guy from San Diego, but when your closest most trusted friends beg, implore and mock you for not eating the most amazing dish I've had of 2011, you can't help, but go beyond that. Una Don, UNA Don, UNA DON. I would do bad bad things for this and yes that includes frequent 100 mile trips from San Diego, for no other reason than for this. Phone off, no check ins, just me and my bowl.

If you've had unagi, you haven't. You've had frozen, dry packaged eel. This is different, easily the best thing to come from the sea since mermaids. Lobster, crab, uni, oysters, EH. I'm sure the udon is excellent and well reviewed, We're talking about unagi on a level so different it's like the first time you had coke. This was so good we came back less than 20 hours later. A buttery layer of fat under the skin, moist, succulent, sweet meat needed only the slightly sweet sauce to explode in your mouth. Change you life good. As in make me re-review my other 5 star ratings.

If your reading this, your probably reading everyone else's reviews too and your like me and use that as a starting point. If you've ever noticed that most food trucks are just a hair back from restaurants that specialize . They know their food is soo good you'll come to the, not them come to you, well the Takoyaki truck that's frequents Sawtelle south of Santa Monica is the opposite. It's just better, that much better than most other takoyaki, but man does Sasaya come close.

Spicy tuna tartar was good, and yes spicy tuna tar tar is the new spicy tuna roll, but it wasn't spectacular. Could have used more spice and less chip, Maybe it just needed that extra dimension.

Wakame was wakame, Maguro don was excellent, abundant and fresh fish. The 1 thing here that got was subpar was the Avocado Boat. Just a half avo with assorted cubed fish sashimi, but the sauce really did nothing, it was forgettable.

Change your life good Una Don. Make you turn on your friends and family. If it's M-Th 6pm-12am, F-Sat 6pm-2am, Sun 6pm-11pm go, go now if your hungry and if you live far away and are not hungry, you probably will be by the time...

I placed an order for pickup at this restaurant through the app. It showed 15 minutes of my order being ready. I arrived at the restaurant at the specified time. As soon as I arrived, the time for my order to be ready increased by 30 minutes. I tried to ask the staff the reason for this. But she ran into a number of difficulties. Firstly, the staff several times walked past me without paying any attention to me. I tried to call the staff a few more times - no attention. About the fifth time, the staff nevertheless drew attention to me. I tried to ask about my order. To which this women interrupted me, said to wait and come at the time indicated in the application, offer to sit in the restaurant, explain the reason for the delay, and even more so she was not going to apologize for the inconvenience. Half an hour later I returned to the restaurant to find nothing there: the staff is gone, my order is gone. By the way, the restaurant was not heavily loaded: about 1/3-1/2 of the seats, so I did not understand the reason for the delay in my order. After another 10 minutes, the staff still gave me my order. So, I got my food total 45 minutes after the placing order. I saw that no chopsticks had been placed in my bag of food. I asked the staff to give me chopsticks. She did not listen to my question and interrupted me with her “no!”. When I finally finished my question, she handed me the chopsticks as if I were asking her for some of her personal things. Also tactlessly, this staff communicated (if she paid attention to them) with couriers waiting for orders. In the restaurant, I noticed tablets with a menu for ordering on every table - a very cool idea, you need to minimize your communication with such staff 🤷‍♂️ The food is generally not bad, but I didn’t see anything incredible there, I tried tastier ones. So I think the price of this food is very high. I also liked wasabi and ginger. Total: uneducated staff, lack of service, slow cooking, overpriced good food, tablets for ordering...