Eat Sleep Play: Wakasaya

Once upon a time, Leiwei the Panda was ate ramen noodle in a little area of Los Angeles known as Japan Town. Aside from ramen, the panda also craves rice bowls such as shredded pork bowls, chicken and egg, fried pork tonkatsu, and the ever-yucky but surprisingly hearty Yoshinoya beef bowl. But Leiwei came across another kind of rice bowl he wanted to try but never really did thanks to ramen. What was it called?


It was Wakasaya.


Wha? Huh? Say what? Wah-kah-sah-yah. This little joint that Leiwei always had eyes on. It was previous a korean-restaurant-of-some-sorts-to-the-point-nobody-knew-what-they-served place that had very little customer traffic. It quickly went downhill and Wakasaya adopted the location quick fast and boldly gave us a new take on rice bowl.

Leiwei saw the menu and thought it was really ridiculous. They have so many combinations! Gar. The menu inside the restaurant was even more ridiculous. In fact, the panda was confused how many times he saw the same iteration of sea urchin aside other mixes of seafood selections. It would've been more practical for this restaurant to list a page of all available types of seafood, and on the bottom of the very same page, tell the customer to mix and match. But no. They wanted their menu to be eye catching, so each page listed one particular seafood with options to go along it.


For example, one page would list something like this:

• Sea Urchin x Crab x Salmon roe
  
• Sea Urchin x Tuna x Yellow snapper
  
• Sea Urchin x Eel x Octopus
  
• Sea Urchin x Fatty Tuna x Salmon Roe

And another page would be:

• Salmon Roe x Crab x Sea Urchin
  
• Salmon Roe x Tuna x Yellow Snapper
  
• Salmon Roe x Fatty Tuna x Eel
  

So basically, each page is almost like a rehash of the previous page. Anyway, confused Leiwei decided to try what looked unique and exciting.

Ok. That's not really what Leiwei had. Leiwei had the eel, sea urchin, and fatty tuna. It's just that Panda couldn't find the picture to that combination.

The corner of the restaurant as people come in.

Tables on the left side.

Tables continuing to the corner at the end.

A wall with pictures of people that ordered the insanely-large-rice-bowl-with-combination-seafood-for-the-morbidly-obese bikkuri-don, supposedly about $45 if remembered correctly. Free if finished within 15 minutes with soup! Now this could easily be done if the toppings were all just sea-urchin, but with different types of seafood, scoffing down a large bowl in under 15 minutes seems difficult.

Especially when the bowls are that big. With bottle of red pepper on the lower right corner to show size comparison.

Ultimately, Leiwei scoffed down his food so fast he forgot to take pictures of it, so silly panda has to leave people with a picture of his empty bowls. Gar!


The meal was really good especially with the beer. However, the price of $14.50 for a bowl of rice, some toppings, and a side bowl of miso soup is a bit too pricy. There isn't much rice in that bowl, and the toppings aren't much either. Overall, to get full, it's best to order the meal with the $2.50 side bowl of udon (about $4.50 by itself). This means that with beer, it'll cost more than $20 for one person! Yikes! Just to get full mind you! It doesn't take more than 5-7 minutes to finish a bowl from this place.

Given that this is a seafood rice bowl joint however, it's kind of expected for the price to be expensive. It's all seafood! The food was really good, but the fatty tuna was a bit fishy. Otherwise, Leiwei would definitely try it again.

Leiwei gives this place a 3 out of 5 happy panda tummies just because there isn't enough food for its price. Very delicious though.


335 East 2nd St
104-106 Japanese Village Plaza Mall
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 621-2121
Hours: They close around 2pm and open again for dinner around 5pm til late at night.