A while back Anh and I were in PB to visit our friends over at The Secret Cookie Service and saw that there was a new restaurant serving Japanese food. At the prospect of finding a new place to enjoy, we made our way over after spending the usual 10 minutes to find parking.
We came a little early and were the only ones inside. No matter, this allowed me to avoid the normal funny glares as I snap snap away at everything in sight.
Finding good lunch specials excite me almost as much as being handed scratch and sniff stickers in elementary school when I got a good grade.
There seem to be plenty of options to choose from. Sushi lovers, ramen lovers, and small plate lovers can all coexist here.
Sorry if I hyped you up with the lunch special talk. It wasn’t a lie how much I enjoy discovering great lunch specials. However, this wouldn’t be one of those days as we wanted to share a bunch of smaller plates instead. Our first small hot plate was the Chicken Kushi. They are chicken skewers with teriyaki sauce on the side. Coming in at $4.50 it could have been a tad cheaper for my food-logical mind. But I did enjoy how they were cooked and the overall simplicity. When you are served sauce on the side you can’t really blame them for over seasoning it since you are the one dipping!
We wanted to get one vegetable side dish to help balance out the protein so we got the Ohi-Tashi plate served cold. It consisted of lightly blanched bok choy and bonito flakes, on top of a dashi soy sauce. Again, it was fairly simple and light. I probably would have liked it more if there was more sauce.
Rounding out our small plate selection were the Garlic Yuzu Wings served with a spicy citrus soy sauce with pieces of jalapeno peppers. We found our winner of the small plates for the day. The chicken was crispy and tender inside, while giving that nice balance of heat and acid. The vegetable dish on its own wouldn’t make it back on the table for us, but with this dish it definitely served to cleanse our palates.
We are huge ramen lovers so we had to order the Izakaya Ramen. All the normal fixins were in the soup including egg, green onions, sesame seeds, mushrooms, and also pork belly. Like many of the previous dishes, the broth itself was a little on the lighter side. It didn’t have as much depth of pork flavor as I’m accustomed to at other ramen places. The noodles were nice and firm and held up to the soup well. Overall, it wasn’t a bad bowl of ramen, but just not the most memorable.
There are other items on the menu that look interesting and we still have yet to try the sushi. If we find ourselves back in PB and don’t fancy the normal PB type places to eat, perhaps we’ll swing on by again and give them a visit. That Alaskan Kinki Rockfish does sound delicious.
Izakaya Pacific Beach
4516 Mission Blvd., Ste E
San Diego, CA 92109
www.izakayapb.com
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Ooh those yuzu wings sound delicious. Are the lunch specials weekdays only?
They were quite tasty! Funny you ask. I think they actually are only open for lunch on the weekends. They also have happy hour specials which I forgot about. They include the yuzu wings for $5(normally $7).