Izakaya Seki, U Street Corridor - Chef Hiroshi Seki and GM Cizuka Seki on 11th and V Streets

[Ericandblueboy]

We stuffed ourselves Friday night for $100 pp.  We had (i) scallop carpaccio, (ii) ankimo, (iii), chu toro sashimi, (iv) tuna nuta, (v) grilled intestine, (vi) ara yaki, (vii) chicken meatballs, and (viii) yakitori (not pictured and I didn't try it).  Everything I tried except the scallops were reallly delicious.  I thought the scallops were way too thick to be called carpaccio, and I just didn't like the flavors of these particular scallops.  They also mislabeled intestines as tripe.   Of the two pieces of intestines I tried, one was really chewy, while the other was really nice.  If I had to pick 1 tuna dish, I'd pick the tuna nuta over the chu toro, probably because I love shiso and the miso sauce was fantastic.  Also can't go wrong with ara yaki if you like to gnaw on fish bones.

ETA:  Apparently, in Japanese, it's listed as intestines but it was mistranslated in English.

[reedm]

I googled ara yaki, and lo and behold, this turned up; https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/magazine/every-last-bit.html

Because I moved out of Arlington years ago, It's been ages since I've been to Izakaya Seki. Your post reminded me why I loved the place. I may be wrong, but I might have had hamachi kama for the first time there, and it's still one of my favorite dishes. I have a source in a secret location in Ashburn, but it's no match for Seki's spot. 

[yeah]

What are the chances of Ara Yaki being available for an early Saturday dinner? 

[yeah]

On 3/20/2019 at 8:05 AM, yeah said:

What are the chances of Ara Yaki being available for an early Saturday dinner? 

No ara yaki for me on Saturday, but the hamachi kama was similar enough and quite delicious.  The beets were very flavorful and refreshing as well. 

[Marty L.]

Had another just wonderful meal at Seki this evening--including a yosenabe hot-pot I hadn't seen before and an especially delectable order of ara yaki.  As I wrote upthread, Seki is conducive to easy conversation, extremely consistent and innovative, and very fairly priced. Truly one of DC's gems. 

The reason I'm posting again, however, is to flag that Seki is now taking reservations, at the counter and in the dining room! (but also holding a certain number of tables/bar seats for walk-ins, which was no problem at all tonight).  So if you've been reluctant to take your chances on a wait, just head over to this site and click in:

https://www.giftrocker.com/secure/reservationtables/?c=6ca50bec

[Marty L.]

Seki is offering great bento boxes for a midday meal (twelve dollars or so, pick-up between 3-6).

https://www.sekidc.com/merch/bento-box-regular

[Ericandblueboy]

Taking reservations on their website.  Vaccination required.

[Kibbee Nayee]

Was it an off night? Or has this place really fallen? Wife and I had tickets for the Lincoln Theater last night, and dining options in the area of the venue are limited. Alero for bad Mexican fare? Ben's for greasy counter fare? The Smith closed, or at least consolidated and the U Street outpost was sacrificed. So Izakaya Seki was the choice.

In a word, it was poor.

Start with the general ambiance. From the outside it comes across as a dive bar, and it sort of is a dive bar. The bathrooms are down the hall on the ground floor, but getting to them requires quite a bit if shimmying past the end of the food bar and takes a lot of effort not to dip any body parts in the vat of tempura frying oil. Climbing to the upstairs dining area, which is as spare as a high school cafeteria room, the first thing we noticed was how cold it was. "Can you please turn on the heat?" we asked, and a few minutes later, so did one of the diners at another table. The heavily accented response was unintelligible. Menu? Scan the bar code and try to figure out the handwritten scribbles and Japanese characters. Music? A bit too loud and ranging from Grateful Dead to Indy poetry reading. So let's give the overall ambiance a grade of D.

On to the food, which we sort of blundered our way through. Highlights were the whole squid, and the tiny chunks of dark meat chicken on skewers -- 2 little skewers with 6 little pieces for $9 -- and that's about it. Fried oysters -- 3 to an order for 2 people? -- were a little "gamey" and greasy. Chicken meatballs on skewers weren't cooked all the way through. Yellowtail collar was tasty but loaded with bones and scales, as was the whole sardine and the whole mackerel. Bones and scales everywhere, and with just some wooden chopsticks and a single napkin provided per diner, a wet nap or finger bowl would have been nice. Food gets an overall grade of D.

Wine was ridiculously expensive. So was everything else. Overall grade for $300 worth for 2 covers was a D, maybe D-.

We won't be returning here. Please offer us some good dining options within walking distance of the Lincoln Theater, which is one of our favorite music venues.

[Ericandblueboy]

Rooster and Owl is fantastic and a bargain (Micheline 1 star, 4 courses for $85).  I haven't been back to Maydan in years but it retains a Micheline star.

[Mark Slater]

20 hours ago, Kibbee Nayee said:

Was it an off night? Or has this place really fallen? Wife and I had tickets for the Lincoln Theater last night, and dining options in the area of the venue are limited. Alero for bad Mexican fare? Ben's for greasy counter fare? The Smith closed, or at least consolidated and the U Street outpost was sacrificed. So Izakaya Seki was the choice.

In a word, it was poor.

Start with the general ambiance. From the outside it comes across as a dive bar, and it sort of is a dive bar. The bathrooms are down the hall on the ground floor, but getting to them requires quite a bit if shimmying past the end of the food bar and takes a lot of effort not to dip any body parts in the vat of tempura frying oil. Climbing to the upstairs dining area, which is as spare as a high school cafeteria room, the first thing we noticed was how cold it was. "Can you please turn on the heat?" we asked, and a few minutes later, so did one of the diners at another table. The heavily accented response was unintelligible. Menu? Scan the bar code and try to figure out the handwritten scribbles and Japanese characters. Music? A bit too loud and ranging from Grateful Dead to Indy poetry reading. So let's give the overall ambiance a grade of D.

On to the food, which we sort of blundered our way through. Highlights were the whole squid, and the tiny chunks of dark meat chicken on skewers -- 2 little skewers with 6 little pieces for $9 -- and that's about it. Fried oysters -- 3 to an order for 2 people? -- were a little "gamey" and greasy. Chicken meatballs on skewers weren't cooked all the way through. Yellowtail collar was tasty but loaded with bones and scales, as was the whole sardine and the whole mackerel. Bones and scales everywhere, and with just some wooden chopsticks and a single napkin provided per diner, a wet nap or finger bowl would have been nice. Food gets an overall grade of D.

Wine was ridiculously expensive. So was everything else. Overall grade for $300 worth for 2 covers was a D, maybe D-.

We won't be returning here. Please offer us some good dining options within walking distance of the Lincoln Theater, which is one of our favorite music venues.

Wow, that sound awful. I wonder what happened. 

[Bart]

On 11/14/2022 at 10:58 AM, Kibbee Nayee said:

Was it an off night? Or has this place really fallen?

Wow!  This is surprising.  I was there on Sunday night for a show at the 9:30 club and had a different experience.  

I do agree that the QR code menu is lame and annoying and has no place in a restaurant when you're dropping $150 per person.  And as you noted, it's not the most user friendly menu - the hand written scribbles and the Japanese words required me to lean heavily on the server for advice.  A couple items that I really wanted to get "weren't on the menu", but they actually were......written in Japanese, so it was lost on me until I asked.

One of the highlights for me was the eggplant dish.  It was so good, I ordered a second plate!  On the menu it's listed as Nasu Agebitashi and I needed the servers help to find it.  The price was not listed on the menu, but it was a relative bargain at $8.50.

The other dish that I knew I wanted to get was the "twice cooked fish" that Mark Bitman wrote about a few years ago.  The serve you a whole fish with cut up sashimi style fish inside it, and when you're done with that, they take the empty fish body back to the kitchen to deep fry it, and then you eat the deep fried bones.  This was another one that I had to ask about because it wasn't apparent to me on the menu, and the name that Bitman used to describe it was different than what was on the menu.  The thing I ordered was called Ajita Taki ($27) and it was good and weird and unique!  Photos below (Dish as served, garnish removed, being eaten, the deep fried bones)

Another highlight that was suggested by the server was the Hokkaido Scallop Carpaccio for $18.50.  There is no description on the menu but the server highlighted the sauce which was made with apple and pear and herbs and other things I can't remember, but it was very subtle and very good.  I wish they had a better write up of this dish (and every other dish for that matter!)

Like Kibbee Nayee, I got the Hamachi Kama (yellowtail collar) for $25.50 at the recommendation of the server and it was good, but not as good or interesting as some other dishes.  I was there alone so I could pick it up and chew the meat off the bones without having to worry about trying to divide it up and share.  But yes, my fingers were a sticky mess after that dish and really needed a wet nap or something similar.  This was a dish that I probably wouldn't order again at that price. 

My other dish was the Uni for $27.  You get a bowl full of uni with an egg yolk to mix in.  Super decadent and super good!  For me it was a much better value than the Hamachi Kama.

For drinks, I got the cheapest carafe of sake they had and followed it up with a canned beer.  Had to save money somewhere! 😉   My bill was $160 before tip and just shy of $200 after tip.  😬

 

 

[Kibbee Nayee]

1 hour ago, Bart said:

Wow!  This is surprising.  I was there on Sunday night for a show at the 9:30 club and had a different experience.  

Yes, you had a completely different experience, and we would have been thrilled with your experience. You were armed with some foreknowledge and you had the benefit of a helpful server. We had none of that, plus we were freezing from the heater not being on, and the annoyingly loud music track, and a server who had no interest in drawing our attention to the hidden delicacies on (and off) the menu. We will never set foot in that place again, because the joys you extoll were simply denied to us. I'm not sure how to explain how or why, but what you enjoyed should be available to all of us.

[KeithA]

Lovely meal at Izakaya Seki last night. We arrived for our 7pm reservation and were quickly seated at the kitchen bar on the first floor. I don't know if they take seating requests but getting a seat right across from the chefs was fun to watch all of the cooking action. They now are back to having mostly printed menus with the specials menu accessible by QR code. IThis was a little confusing as we didn't realize there was an additional menu but the waiter pointed it out to us. He also very kindly walked us through some of the menu items and explained some of the specials and answered all of our questions. The specials menu is like a whole additional 1/3 of dishes - they had multiple options in almost all of the areas of the regular menu - raw/fried/obanzai, etc.

We started with the tuna nuta (chunks of sashimi tuna kind of poke style) with a spicy miso sauce and some shredded shiso leaf. Wonderful dish and ample portion. My wife had the cooked salmon rice ball/onigiri which was also very good (I had to plead for a bite). We got the soba warm dashi soup which was a great portion for 2 to share and each have more than a cup but not a whole bowl of soup. Soba was very thin and fresh tasting with a great dashi broth. Then, we got an array of their vegetable sides / obanzai. We opted for the special nasu abetashi - chunks of very soft eggplant in a miso sauce, special asapargus with light sauce and garlic chip, and thin sliced lightly marinated cucumber. The eggplant was very good - rich and hearty, the asparagus was good too and the cucumber was simple but a refreshing contrast to the other rich flavors. We ate the obanzai along with chicken meatballs /tsukune and yakitori (each is 2 skewers). Both had the same rich tare sauce (similar to but less sweet that teriyaki). The meat balls were each one big meatball molded around the skewer and I enjoyed them, but the yakitori was better. The thigh meat and the small pieces of charred scallion were great.  We also got the special steak with garlic fried rice. The steak was a good size piece of seared medium rare steak in a rich sauce served on a small sizzling platter. It was also tasty and good if you are looking for a bigger protein dish that isn't fish. However, neither of us enjoyed the fried rice that is served on a separate plate. It was fine but seemed to lack flavor and the flavor it had didn't seem to blend well or go well with the steak. It looked like it might have shredded shiso mixed in (and while we like that herbal flavor in some dishes - it didn't go well here). We finished with mango and adzuki/red bean ice cream (a small scoop of each) - they also had green tea and roasted green tea flavors. The ice cream was ok - it could have been creamier but still nice ending. Overall the food and service were great - lots of hits and only a minor miss with the fried rice.

We saw lots of people getting sashimi and a few orders of the sauted mushrooms that looked very good too.

One other thing we would do differently, we ordered everything at once and that meant food started arriving fast but they still managed to pace us somewhat. Next time, I would order a few things and wait to order more.

Lastly, only tangential to Seki, but we started off the night getting tiki drinks at Archipelago which is only a 2 minute walk away. I'd do that again too.

[Mark Dedrick]

Sounds like a delightful evening. We ate at Seki last week and also had a wonderful meal, as always. The pacing issue is key. We've found that it's best to have an opening salvo, then a second round, and then to reassess how we're feeling and what else we'd like. We always save the onigiri for last, because while delicious it will absolutely fill us up as I've learned in the past. 

[Tweaked]

For all the Seki fans.

SPRING/SUMMER 2023 NOTICE:

WE WILL BE FULLY CLOSED BETWEEN MAY 15-25 FOR SOME MUCH NEEDED RENOVATION.

WE WILL BE OPEN AT THE COUNTER ONLY FOR PARTIES OF 1-2 BETWEEN MAY 26-JUNE 8.

WE INTEND TO BE FULLY OPEN AGAIN (PENDING RENOVATIONS) ON JUNE 9! Apologies for any inconvenience during these times.