Yakuza is just one star in the Camden constellation on the corner of NE 30th and Killingsworth. It's got a nice patio and big garage doors that let in lots of light and air to a room that's very tastefully appointed. The bar area is comfortable, and the drink list features a fairly curated "Marcus" list as well as a small handful of draft beers to go along with a full booze selection. Yakuza bills itself as an izakaya, but it's less Yuzu and more Biwa, if you get my drift.
Still, of all the spots on the corner, it's Yakuza where I feel most comfortable, and it's a great place to open an evening's series of festivities; the atmosphere is lively and the drinks are great.
The menu adds in many Western touches to its izakaya menu, surely a concession of doing business in that neighborhood, which is fine as long as it's pulled off well. An example of such a miss would be the seaweed salad, which was less the vivid and vibrant display of wakame to which I'm accustomed, and more an uninspired julienne salad that oh-by-the-way has sesame and some seaweed tossed through.
However, Yakuza does succeed in marrying Western flair to an izakaya aesthetic in many of its other dishes. The chevre appetizer, breaded in panko and topped with caramelized onions, is reminiscent of many of the fusion-style izakaya faire one might find in Vancouver BC, but it's the addition of the sweetness from the honey that balances the dish, adding a nice sweetened viscosity to the crumbling umami of the goat cheese and the crunch of the panko crumbs.
Scallops wrapped in finely shredded phyllo dough is deep fried with stunning results. The scallop, pinned in the hot oil, is cooked to a delicious consistency while the strands of phyllo are drawn upward in the fryer, and once removed from the oil, they keep their flame-like shapes in a sort of deep-fried suspended animation. It's served atop an aioli whose pleasing citrus note doesn't so much cut through the dish (as it's really not that rich to begin with) but bolster the flavor of the scallop and its crunchy exterior.
It's not all fusion small plates: a delicious tataki of lightly seared white tuna topped with ginger would be recognizable in any izakaya, though perhaps paradoxically moreso in rooms that aren't so beautifully lit. Flecks of togarashi and long strands of green onion are a bit superfluous for me, but hey I'm a minimalist, and the fish definitely tasted good so I don't really mind.
One of the primary reasons I've been wanting to go to Yakuza is for the burger. I'm not going to pretend to be able to taste the subtle differences between American wagyu and Kobe and whatever else, but I do recognize a good burger when I sink my maw into one. I firmly believe that the most underrated aspect of a great burger is the acid component, and Yakuza's burger gets a subtle boost from the goat cheese used in the burger. Unprompted, the burger came out to a glorious rare-medium-rare; its dark brown exterior revealed a uniform light red once you bite into the coarsely ground patty. The heap of finely julienned "shoestring fries" served inside the burger gave a nice textural crunch, but like the togarashi in one of the previous dishes, I've already mentally glossed over the window-dressing in the face of quality. Yeah, this is a pretty fine burger.
I was too fisting my drinks tonight (really, not too different from most other nights, sadly), toggling between a glass of a dry Kasumi Tsuru Kinoto sake while also imbibing in a Bulleit bourbon and ginger beer cocktail, the Whiskey #2. That's perhaps the best way to describe Yakuza -- it's definitely a marriage of east and west, where something like, say, sake and Bulleit can sit harmoniously, one in each hand, to delicious effect.
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Food: SauceSupreme
Booze: LushAngeles