Yen Sushi & Roll, a Japanese fusion restaurant that recently opened in Irvine, is a casual and friendly place.
It features black tables and hefty wood chairs, with about 40 seats inside and a few tables outside, plus 12 sushi bar seats. On one wall is a plasma screen TV, perfect for watching sports or other newsworthy programs.
Yen evokes Japanese simplicity with a restful golden yellow and sage green color scheme that accommodates raw wood shelves as the back wall of the sushi bar. Attractively shaped and colorful sake bottles and small teapots decorate the shelves.
The already modern d & #233;cor and the Japanese serenity is punctuated with hip and trendy little lights hanging over the sushi bar.
Yen is part of a restaurant corporation that began in Los Angeles five years ago and includes other restaurants as well. This is the third Yen restaurant in Southern California. The other two are in Studio City and Long Beach’s Belmont Shore. The company is working on a second Orange County location for next year.
The corporation’s other major restaurant is Myung Ga, which concentrates on Korean barbecue and soft tofu dishes. There are several of these in New York and Los Angeles. We have our own Myung Ga in Garden Grove.
But this article is about Yen and Japanese food, so let’s get on with that.
The four sushi chefs wave, say a cheery hello or give a slight bow as we arrive, making us feel welcome. We sit and anticipate the menu that promises an interesting and flavorful trek through Japanese dishes given a clever twist in many instances.
For the first few weeks, the menu is a colorful affair of photographs of most of the dishes. This allows us to see what things like the crunch dragon roll, snow cone roll, gyoza appetizers (pleated and crisped potstickers), salads, noodle dishes and such will look like on the plate. After that, a printed menu with descriptions of each item will take its place.
We’ve tried quite a bit of the food already and have been impressed with the tastes and textures. The service staff has been helpful and gracious and prices here are certainly right. General manager and partner Mike Yun cheerfully visits with everyone, giving a feeling that it’s going to be a nice time of culinary discovery.
Try out the food at lunch or dinner. Salads make for especially interesting midday dining. We had a sashimi salad that combined several kinds of raw fish atop mixed greens with a swirl of avocado adding grace. An array of greens and hand-cut vegetables (tossed in a sesame oil, rice vinegar and spice mix) is stacked on the plate and topped with the chunks of seafood that also have been tossed in the same dressing. Chicken salad, tofu salad, salmon skin salad,there’s so much to choose from.
I suggest the sliced, seared tuna sashimi splayed like a giant starburst on the plate. Pure and elegant food. For the tempura shrimp and vegetables, the batter is very light, delivering an extra crunchy exterior. Green mussels are baked in their shells with a house special gratin-like topping. Soft shell crab and baked yellowtail collar are things that lean toward the divine side of Japanese dining.
There are 48 kinds of “rolls.” That means you can have lots of fun spread over many visits as you wander here and there with a few different tastes each time. Names like Vegas Roll, Alaska Roll, Philadelphia Roll and Hawaiian Tempura Roll take you on a journey through cities and states with something in each of those dishes to remind you of the namesake place.
Shrimp tempura, crab and avocado make up one wonderful roll called the super crunch. Do try the popcorn lobster roll. It has one tempura-fried piece of lobster atop each slice of your spicy tuna roll. Tornado, eel and cucumber, volcano and ichiban are but a few of the other names sprinkled in the long, long list of rolls with rice on the outside and inside out rolls too.
Combo plates of sushi and sushi orders a la carte join bento boxes with lots of goodies plus soup, rice and salad. I happen to love the thick noodles called udon. Have a bowl of them with beef, chicken or tempura adding its flavor.
One doesn’t ordinarily think of Japanese restaurants as being serious about desserts. Yen offers several kinds of exotic ice cream, a banana/ice cream “surprise” and the clever one called tempura ice cream. It comes in a prodigious portion and is one of those oxymorons of culinaria.
Green tea ice cream is frozen into a hard block, surrounded by thinly sliced pound cake, then dipped in a thin film of tempura batter and deep fried momentarily to provide hot crunch on the outside. It’s served in an extra caloric version via the added mound of whipped cream and the chocolate ribbons upon which it sits.
Is it delicious? Certainly.
This is a polite Japanese restaurant with a bit of a trendy take on the food. It gets us interested in trying things slightly familiar and at the same time slightly new. Perhaps like me, you will find this a nice little diversification.
Best Brews
Taps Fish House & Brewery in Brea has been one of the shining stars of good dining in North County for the past six years.
It also serves up a sort of old Southern nostalgia, so touching at the moment because it looks like and does bring to us the feeling of a New Orleans French Quarter restaurant. It was the cornerstone of the revitalization of downtown Brea and has built a serious customer base from Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties with a menu of fresh seafood, steaks and large oyster bar.
The brewery segment has gained its own fame. A Sunday jazz brunch adds to its sense of place and our enjoyment. The restaurant is privately owned by the Manzella siblings: Joe, Peter and Michelle. They are hands-on operators who take pride in interacting with customers.
There are two current things I’d like to share about this restaurant.
First, let’s talk about the brewery. At the recent 2005 Los Angeles County Fair, brew master Victor Novak took home the gold for his Belgian White beer. His Helles custom brew and Taps signature California Gold also grabbed medals.
He only entered four beers in the competition and took three awards. During the past six years, Victor and the brewery have won a slew of awards from the brewing industry and in competitions. Taps has enjoyed recognition as one of America’s best small breweries. Victor brews some 35 different beers throughout the year, which are rotated seven at a time.
Here’s the second part of the story: There’s a way for you to enjoy some of Victor’s best brews along with a notable menu.
The Taste of the Harvest Beer Dinner takes place Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. Executive chef Tom Small will match a unique menu with Victor’s beers and one very special beer from Canada.
I’ve hauled along several friends for these fall dinners in the past, so I know what I am talking about. It’s quality, quality, quality at a bargain basement price.
The starter will be an ancho chile-crusted jumbo scallop with spaghetti squash and smoked tomato sauce. That will be the match for the Helles, a golden, Munich-style lager with the accent on the malt. It’s medium-bodied and very smooth.
A second course salad of autumn greens, warm goat cheese and Fuyu persimmon finds its match in the California Gold beer, a medium-bodied, slightly citrus, golden ale with a nice hop nose and crisp, dry finish.
Mautide, a full-bodied ale with hints of dried fruit and spice from Unibroue, a renowned brewery in Quebec that makes Belgian-style ales, will be presented with the entree: braised buffalo short ribs with sage-scented polenta and roasted root vegetables.
Pumpkin is synonymous with autumn and winter and one of my favorite beers ever tasted is Victor’s acclaimed Pumpkin Ale. This pumpkin pie in a glass is a medium-bodied amber ale made with fresh pumpkin and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice. The finale of this tasting dinner to go with that ale will be a cinnamon cr & #269;me br & #369;l & #233;e served in a miniature pumpkin. And, there will be a maple leaf cookie to add crunch and even more sweet interest to this seasonal dessert.
We concentrate so much on wines with food, but beers like these enlighten our palate and make dining all the more interesting when we realize how smooth and well qualified they are for enjoyable sipping or for matching with a meal. Cost of the Taste of the Harvest Beer Dinner is $50 all-inclusive. Seating for this once-a-year dinner is limited. Call (714) 257-0101 for reservations. Taps is at the Birch Street Promenade, 101 E. Imperial Highway, Brea.
Gourmet Evenings
Five Crowns in Corona del Mar is providing some amusing, but gourmet evenings next week and on Halloween.
On Oct. 24 at 7 p.m., there’s an Oktoberfest Dinner. Accordionist Dick Schober will play traditional songs, toasts and sing-a-longs. The meal will feature top German and Austrian beers to complement the food.
Executive chef Dennis Brask will present a buffet menu of cucumber salad, spinach salad with hot bacon dressing, herring prepared two ways, German cheeses and cold meats with which to fill your first plate.
Entrees will include sauerbraten, smoked pork loin, sausage trio (white brats, knockwurst and smoked brats), roasted goose and salmon with herbs and horseradish. Side dishes of vegetables and even spaetzle will further enhance the meal, not to mention apple strudel and schaum torte for dessert. Price is $79.
And, who says that Halloween is for kids?
Five Crowns also will have a Murder Mystery Dinner on Oct. 31. It’s $79 (including entertainment, food, tax and gratuity) for an evening of unusual entertainment, odd behavior, loads of fun and possibly even an appearance from the resident ghost.
If you’ve attended mystery dinners before, be assured this is a different mystery for you to solve. What fun.
The menu begins with porcini mushroom ravioli and then a salad with pine nuts and gorgonzola cheese. There’s a choice of entrees: roasted prime ribs of beef with creamed spinach and Yorkshire pudding, roast duckling with fruit compote or potato-crusted salmon with horseradish topping and three-mustard sauce. Dessert is strawberry English trifle.
If you’re not having fun while dining, it isn’t their fault. For more information on these two evenings, call (949) 760-0331. Five Crowns is at 3801 E. Coast Highway (at Poppy Street), Corona del Mar.
AT A GLANCE – Yen Sushi & Roll
Japanese fusion
Address: 5365 Alton Parkway
Irvine
Phone: (949) 551-3599
Prices: Bento Box with choice of two main items and soup, rice and salad $7.50; noodle bowls $5.99;
salads $4.50 to $12.99; sushi rolls $4.99 to $9.99
