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Akasaka Restaurant
Rating Details »
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
- Takes Reservations:
- Yes
- Delivery:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- No
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
17 reviews for Akasaka Restaurant
I came to eat here twice. The first time was 8 years ago, and I don't remember anything from that experience except for the fact that my girlfriend at the time dropped her Tiffany necklace in the parking lot and we had to come back that same night to look for it. We found it.
The second time was about a month ago. The food was OK. It wasn't that good, but it wasn't bad either. It was like a fusion of Korean and Japanese, and it was to be expected since the majority of customers were Korean. You get the little Korean side dishes that usually come before the main meal. I think it's a good idea if you're in the mood for both Korean and Japanese and can't decide. I was more in the mood for Japanese food, and not so much Korean, so I wasn't really satisfied.
Service was pretty good, but it's also because I knew the server. Not that I'm saying she wouldn't be a good one if she didn't know you.
Either way, I probably won't come back here because I'm usually either in the mood for Korean or Japanese, and not both.
I've been eating here for the last 5 years now. My kids love this place and always looks forward to coming here. We eat here so much that the owners gives us a gift during the holidays. Its by far my favorite Korean Restaurant around. I eat at a few spots here and there but when it comes to entertaining friends and family this is our spot. The service is great. We are always treated like friends when we come here. The food is amazing. And if you like Korean dining you owe it to yourself to come here.
I rate this restaurant for the Korean Cuisine and not for the Japanese though they serve both. Me and my wife do eat alot of Sushi but not here. Its not bad, dont get me wrong. But we come here for only one thing, the Korean food. :)
If you've never eaten at a Korean Restaurant before then your in for a treat. You always start of with plenty of appatizers on the house. From different type of Kimchee to a variety of vegitable dishes or sometimes fish / seafood appetizers. You would normally get about 4-6 little plates of goodness before your main meal comes. If you come enough, the waiters will start spoiling with other tasting. Once they gave me Conch. The meat was sliced in nice portions with the huge shell decorating the plate. Thats as first for me. I've had snails before but never this. It was a nice experience. This is the type of hospitality you will expect from here.
We always start off with Spicy Tofu Soup which is the most popular. It comes in different flavors from beef, pork, and seafood. There are some Korean Restaurants out there that makes there Tofu Soups there main dish like how Pho is to Vietnamese. Then the grill! You need to make sure when you come here to eat off the grill. Most tables have a grill right in the middle of the table. You order different types of meats from Beef Ribs, Spicy Pork slices, to Prawns and Chicken. You then start placing the meats on the grill and start cooking away. This is always the highlight of any Korean meal we have for dinner. When the meat is done we normally wrap it in Lettuce and dip it in a bean paste and sesame oil which just compliments every bite. Just writing this is making my mouth water.
All in all I highly recommend this place. Bring some friends or family. Grab a table with a grill and enjoy the great food. You will not regret it! If your are bringing a group of more then 6, there are bigger rooms with grills in them. I brought a group of 12 once and we where all able to sit in on room with a sunken floor which was fun for everyone. Do make reservations if your party is bigger then 6. Have fun!
I thought the service was alright. But the food wasn't remarkable.
Good place for a decent japanese style korean food or korean style japanese food.
nothing more nothing less
Wow,
You never realize how many restaurants you've been to until you log into yelp and you see the default restaurant your family goes to whenever you go out to eat staring at you in the new reviews box.
My dad is like a permanent fixture in the bar here. It's where he goes to eat, have drinks with friends, and to relax. Whenever we have family in town we inevitably get one of those side rooms where you have to sit on the floor...hate that...end up with cramps in your legs and back while your feet fall asleep...but anyways.
Sushi here is good and the Sashimi is even better. Shabby interior that could do with some remodeling and a good wipe down, but typical for a Korean owned restaurant. The concept of a professional waiter or server is unknown in Korean circles. Most of the ladies that work here have been doing it for years, but there's a secret to getting quick service at Korean restaurants. You gotta be able to raise your voice a little and say "Yuh-kee Yo!" or "Juh-kee Yo!". Make sure you make eye contact after you yell and they'll rush right over. It might be outside of your comfort zone to raise your voice a little, but when in rome right?
That said this is a seafood restaurant. Go with the Sashimi. If you're cheap and want to get a bigger bang for your buck go with Sushi.
I am not really a fan of Maewun Tang (spicy fish soup), but others who are fans have said that theirs is the best. It's okay as far as I'm concerned, but once again I am not really a fan of the dish.
Korean BBQ? Other items? I dunno, I've only had Sashimi and Sushi here. Haven't experienced the nail in the rice or feel the service is all that bad. If you want Sushi in Federal Way (limited options) this place is the best place for it in town.
I've known this place for a long time and it has been a while since I ate here..seriously about 10 years ago. The reason why I went here was because my friend decided to take his mom for Mother's day here and I just tagged along with my family.
To make the long story short...the sushi was 'ok'. That's the thing about sushi, it's not like it magically has this fantastic taste to your tastebuds like other foods like marinated meat and such, but to me sushi just tastes pretty much the same everywhere I go.
Then we ordered spicy pan fried octopus with noodles. It was blend. But the part that ruined it was we ordered 2 big sushi platter and two spicy pan friend octopus which all came out to be $140.00!! Trust me, the portions were small.
In any case, I prefer other Japanese sushi restaurants anyday.
Akasaka is a bad place to eat period.
You're wasting your money on poor quality and awful tasting food.
The medium sized sashimi plate we ordered came with old radish, dry tuna, and worst of all, half of the assortment was the same kind of fish. There's nothing special with the miso, no tofu or anything, and it smelled of chlorine. The banchan (little dishes to eat with rice) was old and the wrong kind of sour, and the main korean dish (a type of jungol) was eh... mediocre.
Not only is the food bad, but they lack customer service, which is a big no-no for me.
Oh yeah, the hand towels they gave us to clean our hands with left our hands dirtier with a foul stench. Yuck.
$18 sushi platter with the worst spicy tuna roll I've ever had. The tuna was slimy and was evidently covered in hot sauce to hide its lack of freshness. The bowl of rice that accompanied my son's katsu was obviously bottom-of-the-pot burnt and reheated too often.
A real shame. I used to like this place back when I lived nearby. In fact, I had such nice memories of coming here that I chose to have dinner with my son here instead of at any of the Korean places nearby, when I really wanted Korean food.
Never again.
went to akasaka with a few folks and was satisfied. the dinner at akasaka capped off a long day of wine tasting, eating and shopping and i was thoroughly beat by the time we rolled in, which may be the reason why i thought it was ok vs being hte bombdiggity.
service was very pleasant from the sushi chef (the father), the waitresses (the mom & daughter) and the waiter/busboy (the son). everyone was just so nice and extremely accomodating.
onto the food:
apps:
ban chan - decent ban chan...afterall, this place is owned by a korean family.
sea snails - these were pretty good and had a gamey and earthy taste to them. the snails were cooked in their shell and we were provided with toothpicks to dig them out. the bek seju we were pounded really helped quell the gaminess.
sushi & sashimi
toro - decent toro. not extremely fatty like i am used to but the cuts were generous and there was no gristle. it kind of reminded me of hamachi belly.
hamachi - this is one of my favorite cuts of fish and the hamachi at akasaka did not disappoint. smooth and buttery.
maguro - hefty cut but the maguro was not very flavorful. dull but firm...does that make sense?
at this point my memory was dying due to sheer exhaustion and the copious amounts of bek seju. all i can say is that the remaining sushi/sashimi,/etc was just ok. nothing really stood out, everything was just average. i guess at the end of the day, average is not shabby huh?
akasaka is decent. but decent is dime a dozen. next time i am up in the seattle area, i want to find a bomb ass sushi joint...afterall, seattle is known for their seafood!!
By far the best place for Japanese food ... or at least the best place in Washington not named Nishino. The sushi here is very good but if you come here just for the sushi then you're really missing out. Truth be told, you can probably get comparable sushi at any decent neighborhood joint and, of course, if you're in Seattle proper there are oodles of options.
No, the reason you come to Akasaka is to try Japanese food in the broadest sense of the word: broiled fish cheeks, udon, about a dozen different sorts of fish stews, etc.
Whenever I'm in the area, I always make an effort to get Akasaka because there are dishes that you will never find in Seattle (or most anywhere else in the Puget Sound area).
For the raw-fish lovers out there, go and try the Hwae Do Bap. It's basically chirashi gone wild. Best thing on a hot day.
Akasaka is a good restaurant, both their Korean and Japanese food are good, not the best but reliably good.
It is a popular restaurants with Korean customers and almost always busy, any day of the week.
If you have time try their hot pot on the table(~ shabu shabu), it's good.
Their sushis are quite good as well.
If you eat there they give you a lot of side dishes while you wait like kimchi etc.. and they are very good and nice to have while you wait.
The only downside of this place are that it is often too busy and they sometimes seem to forget about you.
On the other hand if it's too busy there are many other alternatives within walking distance, such as Anhabi and Indochine.
I'd prefer to give 2.5 stars.
The two of us went on a early Friday evening, hoping to find some decent sushi in Federal Way.
The restaurant was pretty busy. We had a 15 minute wait for a BBQ table.
The patrons were about 50% non-asian and 50% asian, most of them presumably Korean based on the language I overheard people speaking. Interestingly, there was an elderly Japanese couple sitting next to us. They seemed to be enjoying their Japanese dishes which I believe were sukiyaki and possibly an udon soup dish of some sort. They interacted with the staff as if they were regulars.
They directed us to a table that was not clean, so we went back to the waiting area. The hostess seemed pretty incompetent to keep an eye on open tables in an organized fashion.
Once we sat and waited about 10 minutes our waitress finally showed up with some tea. We ordered two appetizers: the ahi poke and a sake-miso marinated black cod filet. These appetizers came out very late, one of them after our entrees.
We ordered various nigiri sushi as well as Kalbi.
The ahi poke was excellent; a very large portion with very nice fish and excellent seasoning. It was just a huge amount of ahi. I'm not a poke expert (yet) but I could not fault the flavors nor the freshness of the fish.
The black cod was excellent. If you've had the miso marinated black cod collar at Maneki, it is very similar, but the version at Akasaka has a pronounced sake flavor that does well to cut through the richness of the miso and butteriness of the cod. It too was char broiled.
My kalbi was cooked in the kitchen. I had wanted to prepare it myself at the BBQ table but they told me that is only done for two or more people. OK, I can't fault them for that, but I was never told this policy when I placed my order. Regardless, the kalbi itself was quite good and well done, a large portion of nice quality meat over a bed of onions on a sizzling plate. The marinate was quite noticeable but not overpowering.
Our sushi was much better than what we expected for sushi in Federal Way. The O-toro tuna was the biggest let down actually; thin slices of less than flavorful otoro. The fat was there but not the flavor, if you get what I mean. The oyster nigiri was very good and fresh, with enough oyster juice preserved to drip into the rice below. The octopus was rather tender (not amazing, but above average) and had a good octopus flavor...it is rare that the flavor stands out for me with octopus. The yellow tail was OK. Halibut was nice and I believe served with sisho leave in the nigiri. Overall, the sushi was much above average for Federal Way, but not outstanding compared to other sushi I have had. I should also mention that the price for the sushi was very reasonable and we got two nigiri pieces per order instead of one. At $5 for two otoro nigiri that is not bad at all for price.
The banchan were sparce and I was not impressed. The cabbage kimchi was pretty average. The cucumber kimchi was a solid B. There was a bean sprout type that was average as well. That is it it for the banchan...just three or four types that were average. In a city with dozens of Korean places, this is not acceptable. The banchan at the pal-do world restaurant, tobang BBQ, kokiri, and Chang Ahn Jung are MUCH more varied (you get 6-10 types automatically) and much more imaginative and tasty. So I thought Akasaka was poor in this area.
So sounds good so far, right? Well, I admit the food, in particular the poke, black cod, and sushi was well priced and tasty. The Kalbi was average for the Federal Way area and the banchan was below average.
Were Akasaka loses points is in cleanliness and service.
There was a fly bothering us and the neighbors throughout the meal.
The drink menu that sits at the end of the table was filthy and unfit to be kept on a dining table.
The waitress, while quite nice when we saw her, was extremely inattentive (never asking if I needed a refill on the beer, not taking away our empty banchan dishes, not asking if we needed any more banchan or drinks, not bringing out our poke APPETIZER until AFTER our entrees arrived...) It was not just us...the Japanese couple next to us had to repeatedly flag down their waitress to get service as well. I've eaten and about 75% of the Korean places in Federal Way and this place had the worst hostess and service of them all.
So its a mixed review. The sushi was better than expected. The korean food was average. Banchan below average. Service and hostess poor. Poor cleanliness. I think we'd go there again for good value sushi takeout and that is about it.
By the way, try tobang BBQ a new KBBQ place about two miles south on Pac Hwy. They just opened and their KBBQ and banchan are outstanding.
Everytime I go here, I make sure I wear sweat pants because my pants go up 3 sizes each time, which just goes to prove how good the food is. If you are having trouble deciding between whether you're craving Japanese or Korean food, this is the place to go because they offer both and both are equally scrumptious.
Pick either to sit in a tatami room or at a table, but make sure you get a table with a grill so that you can mend your own Korean BBQ. I recommend getting the kal bi but in general all the meat they offer is tender and perfectly marinated. The side dishes that come with the Korean BBQ are also very good, so make sure you don't get full of those before the main course comes =)
The sushi and sashimi are also equally as delicious and fresh.
The only reason why I don't give this place 5 stars is because service tends to be a bit slow since the place is usually packed. However, they have little bells at each table that you can ring if you need assistance...nifty indeed.
This place is always busy when I go there. Their sushi/sashimi is fresh and http://bomb.com. Their haemul jjigae and other fish jiigaes are SO GOOD! Last time I was lucky enough to get it when they just got some fresh ones and it melted in my mouth! I haven't tried any of their korean food, so I would not be able to rate anything on that. Their customer service can get a little hectic when they are really busy, but it is usually very good. The interior is great also, they have lifted floor rooms for guests who want to sit in an "authentic" style eating room. I highly recommend this place
I gotta tell you a story about this place.
I've always enjoyed coming to this place because of a. good food, b. good service, and c. large selections of food. my parents love coming to this place.
BUT
One day, my bf and I went to go eat Panbroiled Spicy Octopus.
It was too chewy for me, but oh well, at least my bf liked it.
About 2/3 way done, my bf chews on something hard and spits it out.
Guess what he found!?
A staple. YES.. the metal staple that's used to 'staple' the papers.
We tell the server and she looks at us suspiciously and asks 'you just found it now?' Why does it matter if we found it now or found it 10 min.ago? She took it to the kitchen and comes back out saying there's nothing that could have staples in. I told her it's probably from the packaging or other paperwork they have. We looked at her disgusted, and she told us that she'll take it out of our tab.
This happened during the summer and I never went back.
I hope to go back one day, but i just hope that nothing like this will ever happen again.
Decent food. Its not one of those places that you want to regularly go back to. Once in awhile is ok since their sushi and food isn't the best...its just decent.
If you're willing to drive out of the Federal Way area to get better sushi, definitely do so, but if you're being lazy and need a sushi fix...akasaka would do. Or I'd recommend going to the foodcourt across the street at H-MART. It has a better/fresher sushi stand.
i forgot about this place! i would rather go to Mirak for my korean bbq, but akasaka has really yummy ban-chan (the side dishes served with all korean food) and more importantly, their sushi is FRESH! i've yet to try the korean fare, although i did have the kim-chi ji-gae (kim-chi stew) and it was okay, but their sushi is truly the best i've had up here so far.
service is okay. it's best if you're actually korean cuz they seem to pamper the korean guests a bit more (it's not a racial thing -- it's a cultural comfort thing, cuz all the waiters are korean). and they do get pretty busy so the wait can get a little long, but it's definitely worth it! if you like sushi, and not just good sushi, but GREAT sushi, you need to try this place.
inconsistent food, inconsistent wait staff, some what pricey for what you get but pretty much the best in town for k & j food
