Kappo Honda

As we noted when covering Kappo Honda’s older sibling, Tustin’s Honda-Ya, most people outside of Japan think of a certain kind of restaurant when they hear the words “Japanese food” – a place where the menu spans sushi, a handful of largely fried appetizers, and a collection of hot entrees that may be Japanese, American, and/or Chinese. Done right, these restaurants may resemble and even approximate certain places in Japan; done wrong, they can expose people to mediocre and in some cases really bad renditions of things they might like or love at better establishments.

Kappo Honda is not the typical American Japanese restaurant. It is what exists in Japan as an izakaya – often called a Japanese bar or server of Japanese tavern fare, but better understood as the Japanese version of a Spanish tapas small plates restaurant. You don’t go to Kappo Honda to order a teriyaki chicken bento box and pinot grigot; it’s here to serve you saffron-topped red gyoza, buttered shimeji mushrooms, miso eggplant, squid mixed with spicy cod roe, shishito peppers, a few skewers of robata yakitori, then a uniquely Japanese dessert, such as Matcha green tea mont blanc-topped cake. Pub drinks, including Japanese beers, sakes, and shochus, are also part of the experience.

Unlike Honda-Ya, which is planet-sized by city izakaya standards, Kappo Honda is comparatively a smaller moon with less seating. Arrive at the right time or get lucky during second seatings and you may wind up with an intimate, date night-friendly booth rather than a central table. No matter where you sit, you’ll need to navigate a gigantic collection of choices: between drinks, desserts, and everything else, the menu has 27 pages of options, in addition to always intriguing specials advertised on the walls next to tables.