Hagi Sake Bar

A recent gathering for a special reason… sniff, sniff.  We gathered at Hagi, this crazy loud Japanese izakaya/sake bar type place with lots of people screaming in Japanese.  You know you’re in the right place when it’s a Japanese place and almost every single patron there is speaking Japanese fluently.  But damn, the people next to us were SO loud and drunk.

Spicy cod roe spaghetti, takoyaki, edamame.  Good nibbles for drinking lots.  You can’t see it but we were all drinking that night… even those of us sick.  Hey, it was a special occasion… one of the last times (most of) FC will get together.  Cry.  Alright, I’ll stop with the cryptic messages.  I didn’t try the takoyaki (I got there a lil late, thus the picture of half-eaten food, haha), but the spaghetti was pretty good, even cold. 

Don’t flinch – chicken skin, skewered.  It would have been better had it been a little more well-done – crispier – but it was still fatty deliciousness. 

Pork belly.  Again, fatty goodness, although it fell a lil flat, boosted right up with a squirt of lemon. 

Kalbi/grilled short ribs, these were REALLY good.  No complaints on this dish. 

Duck on the far side, quail eggs closer to us.  I never had quail eggs before this, so it was interesting how the center was a bit soft.  The smokiness from the grill really penetrated, and I really liked these, though AB/LL was like oh nooo, and stopped eating hers.  Guess she didn’t like it.  The duck was good, but again, not particularly flavored strongly beyond ‘duck’. 

Okonomiyaki, or that yummy cabbage/seafood pancake that a lot of Japanese places serve.  It was okay.  I thought my piece was a little too doughy/floury.  I like it more fully cooked and crispier/thinner.

Potato croquette… be warned, there IS meat inside.  I liked it – bits of ground beef, mashed potato, shaped and then deep fried, it’s pretty hard to go wrong, in my opinion. 

On the handwritten chalkboard specials was a peculiar item – “Japanese corn dogs”.  SpB was all Ooh corn dogs, and when I admitted I’d never had a corn dog before, well, she freaked out.  So, we had to order them.  (StB wanted to one as well.)  I’m not sure this counts as having a corn dog?  Is this even normal?

The inside was super light pink, like… what the hell is this?  Seriously?  Okay, as for taste, uhhh, the outside part tasted like a donut, but a poorly made one.  Slightly sweet.  I can imagine that working with a salty hot dog, but this was not that salty hot dog.  I don’t know.  I want to try a ‘real’ corn dog, either homemade or like, at a carnival or something.  Then I’ll feel for sure I’ve had a corn dog.  I would NOT get this again. 

We ended with dessert, some of the girls splitting a black sesame ice cream, and the rest of us splitting their… I forgot the name, but our choice of ice cream flavors (we chose green tea), topped with red bean and rice cakes (which you can’t see, but they’re there).  I liked the rice cakes best out of our dessert, the other stuff was pretty standard. 

Yvo says: I believe, even with treating one of our members and all of us drinking alcohol, the above came out to about $20 a person or so?  (Someone correct me if I’m wrong?)  The skewers are pretty cheap, and actually, all of the food wasn’t very expensive.  Just a note that this place fills up FAST after work – they open at 5:30, and we sent someone to grab a table for us as soon as it opened, by the time I got there around 6, the place was PACKED!!! – so you’ll want to head there as soon as you’re off work, if you plan to eat.  The food was all pretty tasty, the atmosphere like a loud bar except in Japan or something (what with the really loud jabbering in Japanese), and the prices – well, just look at all that food. 
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