Izakaya Wa

I heard about the Izakaya Wa from Sushi Club of Houston, and there's nothing I like more than to try some place new.  So, grabbed a couple of friends to have dinner there.

Izakaya really means a drinking house that serves food.  They have alleys full of bars that serve food, let's call it a all happy hour all the time.  You probably have seen it in movies or anime, and that's what they are trying to create here.  Food that accompanies your drinks.

Their menu is about 3 pages, simple stuff.  1st page was appetizer type food, then it's sushi, then it's skewers.

For sushi, we got a spicy salmon roll, salmon skin handroll, and unagi handroll.

For skewers we have: Scallop skewers

Quail Eggs

Pork belly (top) and Shitake Mushroom (bottom)

Ground chicken wrapped in shiso leaf

We ordered a Hamachi Carpaccio that is pretty good.

The sushi is excellent grade, I definitely felt like we got fresh fish from that point of view.  The skewers, as you saw from the photos, they are all the same color and same taste.  When I saw the skewers on the menu, I was hoping it was grilled not fried with panko.  The sauce to dip it in is good, but since all of the skewers tasted the same, guess it doesn't really make a difference.  The other dishes aren't bad.  But overall, I'm not sure I'll be back just for the other dishes.  We can get decent sushi all around town without going all the way there.  

I will say that the servers are knowledgable on the menu, and super friendly.  Alot of the local Japanese came out in drones to support the owners.  I think I will come back in a month or so and wait till they work out the kinks.  From what we heard, they were going to have a grill for the skewers, but at the time, they weren't set up.  So maybe when we go back, it'll be up and coming.

The place is not easy to find.  From Google Map, it looks like it's by Town and Country, when in fact, you still have to go onto Memorial a little bit more.  And it's behind couple of buildings.  If you don't know what you're looking for, you can easily miss the place.  They took over a building that looks like it was built for Italian or fancy French, with patio and such.  But, I understand starting a new restaurant is hard to find a spot with the price you want. 

Izakaya Wa
12665 Memorial Dr.
Houston, TX 77024
713-461-0155