Yopparai

Fresh sushi with delicate selection of small dish

Yopparai consistently exceeds my expectations. Even after visiting Japan and eating similar izakaya there, I am still impressed by the authenticity of Yopparai’s fare. The hotate butter is a MUST order. One of my favorite restaurants!

This place was great overall. Meal with appetizers for two was about $100. Loved the sushi. Some of them had unique flavors and one had wasabi between the fish and rice. The edamame was salty and tasty and had a nice black sauce (maybe soy sauce). The vegetable tempura was also delicious. Not wildly different from regular tempura, but solid nonetheless. Had some unique vegetables like a basil leaf.

Food is alright, nothing special. Very traditional but lacking in simple refinement. Ordered the tsukemono like dish and there was a carrot, daikon, and eggplant. There was nothing but salt to the flavour. The sushi is good, rice is firm annd well cooked and fish is fresh. Botan miso is also good. Yaki oni was lacking crunch and the rice just tasted dehydrated on the outside. The beef tataki was also fine but lacking in any flavour complexity. The miso butter scallop was extremely over cooked. To the point where the scallop almost didn’t taste like scallop any more. The flavour of the sauce was good though. Wagyu truffle nigiri is fantastic. Smoked mentaiko is alright but serving is quite large. Great drinking snack. All in all not awful but not worth.

Quite an expensive place for dinner. high quality fish interesting dishes but the portion is very small for a bunch of people sharing. Agedashi tofu was great, so was the Sashimi.

Upscale izakaya fare in an intimate bar/lounge setting, Yopparai is perfect for dates or small group dining. I went for a birthday and got a solid assortment of nigiri, tempura, homemade tofu as well as some more exotic (by USA standards) dishes like shirako (cod fish sperm) grilled over charcoal. It can get pricey - after drinks and tip we spent ~$450, but we felt it was fair given the quality of ingredients and diversity of the menu. Really photogenic bar too.