Monday, June 23, 2008

Haru Ulala - My Fav Izakaya place

368 E 2nd St
Los Angeles, CA 90189
(213) 620-1120

Izakaya Haru Ulala

Category: Japanese
Neighborhood: Downtown

4 star rating
12/13/2007
Six of us dined here last night on a Wed. and it was not busy at all. There was a problem with traffic for some unknown reason. Two of us arrived just before 7:30pm and we got several happy hour $2 beers and $3.50 sake with edaname.

Pechanga - Spicy tuna stuffed in a pepper - Awesome!
Okonomiyaki seafood - Great - Large portions
Okonomiyaki pork - almost as good, excellent
Grilled squid - Very good just a little over cooked but still delish
Spinach - okay, wouldn't reorder
Black Pork - Delish
Braised beef short ribs w/daikon - Awesome and tender
Salmon collar - delish, but I'm not really a Salmon fan but it was good
Soft shell crab 0 deep fried - Heaven!
Squid lips fried - good, but what deep fried food doesn't. Very chewy texture, almost tastes like fried chicken.

We ordered lots more dishes, just can't remember them all. For six of us, we could have eaten up at the bar but we chose to eat at a table so we could better chat with each other.

Happy Hours $2 Kirin drafts w/edaname or $3.50 sake w/edaname from 5:30-7:30pm. I sure got my money's worth last night! LOL

Service, a little slow, but friendly and attentive. They gave us happy hours prices on a few drinks past 7:30pm... so that was a big plus to the service. Friendly and cute young waitresses that didn't speak english very well, so obviously this is a place for the Japanese and not the tourists.

There's so many dishes on the hand written menu, I have to go back to try some more dishes. We grazed there for about 3 hours for about $25/person including one beer tax and tip. Two of us drank a lot more than the others at about 4-6 drinks and so we paid $35 including tax/tip. So it was surprisingly moderate in price.

A nice clean place, excellent food, moderate price, cold beer and sake and happy hour specials. This place rocks!

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