Fukada

Although there’s been plenty of turnaround in Orange County restaurants over the years, some have persisted for decades, notably including a couple of Japanese places that were seemingly in their prime years ago. Taiko is one, having served sushi in Irvine since 1980 – before Americans even understood sushi as a concept – and Fukada is another, dating back to the early 2000s. Located in a restaurant-heavy plaza close to the Irvine Spectrum Center with younger neighbors including Flame Broiler and Kuan Zhai Alley, Fukada originally opened with a health-conscious focus on handmade noodles and izakaya-style small dishes, offering full service in a small dining room with beautifully lacquered wood tables and an open kitchen. A stripped-down second location without noodles, Fukada2Go, debuted at a residential complex near the UCI campus in late 2008, focusing on take-out meals, and closed in 2015.

Today, the original Fukada operates with a pandemic-era, low service approach seemingly inspired by Fukada2Go: Even for people who are dining in, everything is served in styrofoam and plastic take-out containers, and guests are supposed to grab whatever bench or chair-style seats might be available rather than reserving tables in advance. Some people may be comfortable with this waste-maximizing concept; in full transparency, we aren’t.

Fukada’s laminated, two-sided menu card includes salads ($7 to $20), appetizers ($5.50 to $18), donburi bowls ($15 to $20), mostly teriyaki- and tempura- entrees ($15 to $34), noodles ($10.50 to $21.50), and combination meals ($18.50 to $22) pairing either noodles or seafood salad with a donburi bowl or sushi cut roll. The vast majority of choices are now found widely in Japanese and Japanese-American places – udon, soba, California rolls, spicy tuna rolls – though there are a few remaining izakaya-only dishes, such as fried oysters (kaki fry, $11), miso-grilled eggplant (nasumiso, $7.50), mountain potato with noodles ($14), and nabe bowls pairing shrimp tempura with chicken or salmon ($16.50 to $18.50). Of note, and explaining much of Fukada’s continued appeal, is that most of these prices are generally lower than at full-service Japanese restaurants, though sushi rolls go for $7 to $7.50 for four pieces, not much of a discount given the downgraded service experience.