Honda-Ya and Beyond: Three O.C. Izakayas That Prove Japanese Pub Culture Is Here to Stay 

It was 2003. Yelp did not exist yet. But a crude, text-only bulletin board system called Chowhound did. And it was there that I wrote and posted my very first restaurant review.

To call it a review is a stretch. I started the piece with, “I just came back from Honda-Ya … and MAN! I LOVE THIS PLACE!” and then proceeded to list all the dishes I ate in numbered order. Other than the quantity and the sequence in which I ate them, I made no effort to describe any of the food.

But what I know now that I didn’t know then, is that the post would set me on a journey that led to starting a food blog and, eventually, spending 12 ½ years as the restaurant critic for OC Weekly.

Twenty three years later, my food blog is in stasis and OC Weekly has shuttered, but I am still a regular at Honda-Ya. That first visit didn’t just inspire me to share my enthusiasm on Chowhound; it also introduced me to the concept of the izakaya, a kind of Japanese pub where drinking and eating small, shareable plates go hand in hand.

If you’ve been to Honda-Ya – or to any of the dozens of izakayas that have opened in its wake since it debuted in 1993 – you know that it helped redefine the term for Southern Californians. Honda-Ya showed us that there was more to Japanese food than sushi and teriyaki. Hundreds of other dishes, in fact, could be found under one roof at an izakaya (including sushi and teriyaki), not to mention oceans of beer and sake.

What follows is a round-up of three izakayas that you should be paying attention to right now. But of course, I first have to pay my respects to the one that arguably started it all in Orange County.

Honda-Ya: The Methuselah of Izakayas

I’ve eaten at hundreds of izakayas by now, even in actual Japan, where they’re often just hole-in-the-wall places to drink alcohol and graze on small dishes such as the grilled skewers of chicken called yakitori.

But you never forget your first.

Every time I step through Honda-Ya’s doors, I breathe easier and my mood is lifted. That’s not just because I’ve usually endured an hour-long wait to get in. It’s also because entering that room feels like being welcomed home, enveloped in the warmth of the familiar. Like an immovable stone in a raging river, Honda-Ya has remained remarkably unchanged over the years — a testament to its stature as Orange County’s preeminent and oldest izakaya.

I love the oversized wooden beams that reinforce the sense of permanence. I love that I have to take off my shoes if I want to sit cross-legged like a samurai in the tatami room. Thanks to its thoughtful Japanese design, Honda-Ya also has one of the coziest dining rooms in all of Orange County.

Even when I’m seated next to a window, I’m not looking out at a parking lot. Instead, I’m gazing at a brightly lit Zen garden illuminated like a museum diorama. And when the luck of the draw lands me near the robata grill, I’m mesmerized by the curls of smoke enveloping the grill master as he squints and flips dozens of yakitori skewers over white-hot coals.

On a recent visit, I ordered my usual assortment of Honda-Ya favorites, some of which are the same dishes I ate 23 years ago. These include the chicken meatball skewers and pork belly that have absorbed the grill’s subtle, sweet binchotan-charcoal smoke. But Honda-Ya has more than 300 items on its menu, and what continually boggles my mind is that the kitchen keeps adding new ones.

My latest discovery was chicken-skin gyoza: chicken skin painstakingly wrapped around a pork-and-cabbage filling, then fried until crisp and golden brown — doppelgängers of Buffalo-wing flats. And lately, Honda-Ya’s kitchen team seems to have developed an affinity for all things truffle. There’s a wonderfully funky, heady mushroom salad tossed with greens in a truffle dressing, as well as a sizzling plate of salmon belly and mushrooms infused with the same truffle essence.

What will I find on my next visit? I don’t know. The only certainty is that I know I’ll taste something new, reaffirm my appreciation for the tried-and-true, and leave with the recognition that if Honda-Ya ever shutters, it will be well after I’m gone.

Izakaya Takasei: What Was New Is New Again

Along with the wave of new izakayas that popped up around Orange County in the 2010s, Honda-Ya itself tried to expand, opening outposts in Little Tokyo, City of Industry and Fullerton.

At the Fullerton location, which opened in 2012, the space matched the scale of the menu. Where the original Tustin location was a narrow squiggle of a restaurant, the Fullerton Honda-Ya had the square footage of a high-school gymnasium. It even had a tatami room like the original, only three times the size.

But in 2015, the owner of the Fullerton branch decided to retire and sold the restaurant to new owners, who renamed it Izakaya Takasei. The new owners, a husband-and-wife team named Takuhiro and Kumi Sakurai, kept the exhaustive menu but updated recipes and introduced a few items of their own. They did so while remaining mindful of the regulars who loved the old dishes just the way they were.

I was one of those regulars. But I found myself visiting Takasei more often than I had visited the original Honda-Ya incarnation. Over the years, I celebrated birthdays and commemorated milestones with loud toasts of Sapporo; because not only did I like the food better under the Sakurais’ stewardship, it was somehow less expensive, too. In 2023, I even singled out the restaurant for its happy-hour discounts in an Instagram reel, calling it the “most cost-effective izakaya in Orange County.”

Then, in late 2025, the Sakurais’ landlord informed them that the entire shopping center might be demolished, redeveloped, or sold. Facing an uncertain future, the couple moved their operation to Huntington Beach. And thus, that’s how, in April 2026, Izakaya Takasei began its second chapter in a corner space at a Vons-anchored shopping center across from Marina High School.

Since they were starting over anyway, the Sakurais took inspiration from the stark, stripped-down space and decided to build the restaurant they’d always wanted to create in Fullerton but couldn’t. This time, they would pursue a more refined, modern interpretation of an izakaya.

What they’ve reestablished in Huntington Beach may have the same name, but this Izakaya Takasei enters uncharted territory as an entirely different concept — a complete reinvention akin to Taylor Swift’s switch from country to pop.

First, there’s the atmosphere, which is now intimate and understated, with smooth jazz playing in the background. When I sat down, I was presented with an oshibori, a damp towel for cleansing my hands. And instead of the sticky, laminated picture menus with dozens of pages at the old location, the dishes were listed in plain black type on ordinary paper.

But the biggest change is in the food itself. Every dish I tried had an elevated air, with renewed attention to execution and presentation. There were still skewers of pork, chicken and vegetables roasted over binchotan coals, of course. But Chef Tak, as Takuhiro likes to be called, and his wife Kumi, who is the head chef and creative force behind the food, seem intent on showing customers old and new that they are capable of much more.

They all but challenge you to find a more decadent piece of beef than their Kagoshima steak: four ounces of Japanese A5 Kagoshima ribeye, simply grilled and sliced. Served with nori-shio fries, sautéed seasonal mushrooms, and asparagus, each slice was so meltingly tender I was able to tear it in half with a tug of my chopsticks. You can imagine how sinful it felt in my mouth.

Meanwhile, a bowl of maguro and salmon tartare topped with ikura and a raw quail egg yolk invited me to spoon the contents into sheets of nori and eat them like tacos. A plate of scallops sautéed in oyster-butter sauce included the tender frills, reminding me of a dish I’d eaten at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Outer Market. And after a banger dessert of fried mochi balls served with kinako and smoky hojicha ice cream, my wife made me promise we’d return to have it again sooner rather than later.

But perhaps the dish that tells you everything you need to know about the new Izakaya Takasei is its gindara miso, or miso-marinated black cod. It’s the same dish that helped make Nobu Matsuhisa famous and rich. At Nobu’s Newport Beach location, the cod costs $48. At Izakaya Takasei, the Sakurais charge only $20.

Mori Izakaya: When Izakaya Meets Karaoke Bar

I went to Mori Izakaya cold. I had a general idea of where it was in Anaheim, but beyond knowing it had been in business since 2023, I knew almost nothing about it.

When my friends and I arrived, guided by GPS, the restaurant wasn’t where the system said it would be. Its website was no help. Instead of photographs of the actual location and storefront, it featured gauzy, AI-generated images of what the building might look like if it were in some town in Japan.

When we finally found the entrance, at the corner of Romneya Drive and Euclid Street, I couldn’t understand why the owners couldn’t simply use a picture of the place itself. It’s one of the nicest and most inviting dining spaces I’ve seen in Orange County. There’s a gurgling fountain at the entrance, a cool-looking bar area, and gorgeous blond-wood beams that cocoon the entire space in warm earth tones. It’s a shame the website chose AI over showcasing the interior designers’ actual real-life work, especially in the main dining room, where they managed to carve out semiprivate booths without sacrificing the room’s openness or blocking the light from the windows.

The website also buried the lede on the very reason this izakaya deserves a place on everyone’s list: it offers $1 oysters all day Sunday through Thursday, limited to six per person. Besides being an incredible deal, these were wonderful oysters, nestled in deep-welled shells, briny, sweet and plump, served with ponzu and a lemon wedge.

On top of that, happy-hour deals abound. From Tuesday through Thursday, there are two windows: 5 to 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. to midnight. On Sundays, happy hour runs from 4 to 6 p.m. Selected dishes, such as fried shrimp shumai, cost just $4; Japanese curry over rice is $7; and the $10 bowls of udon or soba could conceivably fill you up.

Outside those hours, the menu isn’t as large or comprehensive as Honda-Ya’s, but it’s growing. It’s full of shareable dishes prepared in different ways, from crunchy, breaded chicken karaage that dribbled juice when we bit into it, to a Sterno-heated pot of chankonabe, a smaller version of the one-pot meal sumo wrestlers use to bulk up. Although all the grilling happens in an unseen kitchen, there’s also a collection of kushiyaki, including fried fish cakes and Japanese sausages splayed open to resemble octopus tentacles.

That evening we toasted our meal with a large bottle of house sake, which yielded at least six shots. When it ran dry, we ordered another. But our server, having learned that we were celebrating my birthday, told us he’d charge us only for the small bottle.

Even before that gesture, he had already endeared himself to our group. Every time we summoned him by pressing the convenient call button in our booth, he bounded in like a comedian ready to do a set. Since we’d only seen such buttons at Korean barbecue restaurants, he also confirmed what we’d suspected: This Japanese izakaya is Korean-owned.

After dinner, which concluded with a decadent cheesecake and a complimentary ice cream topped with a sparkler, our server took us on a tour of the private karaoke rooms behind the main dining area. He explained that, for a limited time, they could be booked without a minimum spending requirement.

This, I thought, could be Mori’s enduring legacy. Honda-Ya may have taught us that izakayas can pair boozy nights with great food, but Mori Izakaya may be the pioneer that adds singing to the equation.

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