Chef recommended Honda-Ya

One of our favorite restaurant groups in Southern California, Izakaya Honda-Ya has locations in Old Town Tustin, Lil' Tokyo and Fountain Valley.

In Tustin, there's always a long wait and most locals gravitate to the specialty of the house - grilled yakitori.

Without fail, we always order the beef tongue, pork belly and asparagus bacon. Crazy good.

On this day, however, 555 Girl decided to forego our regular order and only request chef-recommended menu items.


Here is what we found.

Gindara Miso: soft, tender and delicately marinated sweet miso black cod. OMG....

The dish is small, but each bite is absolute perfection. 

Cume-shiso tempura: Red snapper wrapped in shiso leaves with plum sauce inside.  This was served with a wedge of lemon and green tea salt. Green tea salt?? We were giddy.

Yam-somen: Thinly sliced fresh yam with cold fish broth. We really tried to love this dish, not just because it was so pretty to look at but because we love the chefs at Honda-Ya. For us, the dish was too slimy and had the flavors of raw and sour radish. 

Buta-kaku: "Soft pork with a small side of boil spinach." If you love and appreciate fat, this is probably one of the best ways to get it. The pork belly is so tender and the fat is perfectly marinated and full of flavor.