Kinkaku Izakaya

At Kinkaku Izakaya, a torched roll can reach the table in the same round as a plate of takoyaki and an order of chicken karaage, and the kitchen treats that span as the point rather than a compromise. The format is all-you-can-eat Japanese built tapas-style: orders come in rounds off a checklist, plates arrive a few at a time, and the range runs wide enough to carry cold sushi, hot izakaya skewers and fries, torched rolls, and a full dessert list in a single sitting. The dining room is downtown, across from City Hall, where lunch service runs to a mid-afternoon cutoff before dinner picks up the evening.

The sushi side leans into rolls with some theatre to them — the Godzilla, the Black Dragon, the Crunch Dragon, the Big Hand Roll, the Queen of Fish — alongside salmon carpaccio cut thin and dressed cold. The izakaya half is where the kitchen's hands show: takoyaki and chicken karaage are the plates that come back to the table most, ebimayo brings the fried-shrimp-and-mayonnaise standard, and the grill turns out beef short ribs, steak teriyaki, and beef enoki rolls. There are shrimp tempura and crab-and-cream-cheese wontons for the fryer, a chicken pan-fried udon for the noodle craving, and a Spanish-style pan-fried shrimp that wanders off the Japanese map without apology. Almost none of it asks to be ordered all at once, which is the quiet logic of the rounds.