Issian

I have been here countless times. The service is great. The food is even better. My favorites would probably be the bacon wrapped quail egg, chicken liver, and grilled octopus. If you’re ever in this neighborhood, definitely give this place a shot.

Fried potato’s look is deceiving for something so delicious. A carb addicts dream come true! Use that sauce!
Bacon wrapped quail egg is like breakfast on a stick, so good!
Veggie roll has the right crunch that lets you know the veggies are fresh and justifies your diet plans – makes you feel better after all those potatoes and bacon.
Orange roll has that juicy appeal, especially with those salmon eggs! Again, tastes fresh!
Potato salad consists of cold noodle-​like potatoes with sesame sauce and green onions. Crisp and tasty!
Despite the frantic rush of orders the staff are polite. Give those guys a pat on the back!
Wait time is a bit long during busy hours (30−40minutes Friday night at 7pm) but the food is worth the wait!

Monday’s are the best days to go! $ 1 oysters during happy hour! I would definitely recommend going earlier in the evening since they do run out sometimes towards the end of happy hour. Service can be spotty (had good experiences and bad) but the food is always amazing and always worth the wait.

Food was ok. Never been somewhere with such consistently bad service. No one seemed to be interested in putting us down on the wait list. It took forever to be seated. It took forever to get menus. It took forever for our sake to show up. It took forever for our food to come. It took forever for our bill after our dishes were cleared. We were short changed. Food came not as described.

This place is ridiculously expensive for extremely tiny portioned food. Ingredient are not that expensive, it’s a rip off. Food is good but not great and definitely not worth the price. Takes a long time to prepare the food and meat overcooked. Very very disappointed. There’s is really no need to jack up the price for the «japanese» title. Sad place.

Came here on a Friday night for Happy Hour.
Ordered a bunch of grill items, all of which were absolutely delicious. (We got pork, chicken, baby octopus and mushroom wrapped in bacon) The mushroom wrapped in bacon is probably the only one I’d skip next time.
Also got the tuna tar tar, octopus carpaccio, takoyaki and koroke. Honestly everything was really good and the price was decent due to happy hour.
The only thing that erks me here is the service. Every time I come here I am astonished by how bad the service is.
So overall the food is great (4 star) but the service is consistently bad (3 star).

TUNA COLLAR! So delicious.
Issian has something for everyone and at really reasonable prices. I can’t eat raw food, but my boyfriend says their sushi is really good too (he’s japanese, if that helps his credibility).

Busy but pleasant atmosphere, had to wait a little while for food, but it was SO worth it! Various grilled food skewers are the specialty, but everything else is also superb! Will definitely visit again!

I love this place! I always go here before they open for dinner because it gets really crowded. I love all the small dishes. I wish they had real salmon sashimi but they only serve the chopped ones. This place is the best izakaya I have ever been in Seattle.

I can only imagine the boozie-​eyed madness that would occur after consuming the omakase and ordering the tuna collar «on the side» as something to fill up on after the sushi. I was sober that night, but when the tuna collar arrived my mentality went to the tipping point between «pretty drunk» and «shitfaced.» I say «imagine» because I don’t want to remember.
The introduction of the tuna collar onto the humble dining table was akin to expecting your first kiss to be light and gentle and instead becoming induced into a slobbery, passionate mess that would make angels cry and the devils laugh. There’s no such thing as a gentle heartthrob. What should I have expected for $ 7? There could have been several apocalypses in local neighborhoods, but I’d still be staring into the soul of the tuna collar.
After finishing the tuna collar (yes, I felt ashamed), I wanted (to be) a cigarette that Japanese people smoke. I was smoked and the leftover bones of the collar were the remnants of my soul that was burned to the ground. Eventually I’ll become the evening fog and harmlessly blow down the lost roads of Wallingford.
Note to self: use Google next time.
Strong 4 outta 5

Since there aren’t many places we can eat with our food allergic kids, but sushi is fairly reliable, we decided to try Issian upon a friend’s recommendation. Their online photos made it look a little more upscale than it is. They do have a «gluten free» menu and the staff seemed well-​meaning, but not very educated about celiac disease or other food allergies. In their defense, my daughter is picky. But I felt like I had to really dig deep and ask many questions before it was determined that they did carry avocado rolls and fish eggs on rice. The menus seemed a bit sticky, the lights bright, the music a bit too loud. Just my two cents. My friends love the place and they make the best sushi ever, so I’m sure Issian must have some to-​die-​for menu items, we just didn’t order them I guess.

If you’re not tolerant to the heat, don’t come here as they don’t have AC, or it was broken. The fans were basically just blowing around hot air. We came here for hh and the flavor of all the food was really good. Overall really good and I’ll be coming here more often.

This is a neighborhood down-​to-​earth Japanese bar/​restaurant. Do not expect to be treated as you are in an upscale Japanese restaurant.
I love this place because, first, their happy hour is awesome. My husband and I normally order 6 – 8 happy dishes plus 1 – 2 regular dishes and 1 – 2 drinks. Our bill was never over 50 dollars. Tonight we had 5 happy hour dishes, 2 yakitori dishes, one regular dish (okonomiyaki) and a beer. Our bill was $ 35. The food was all good. That is why this place is packed during the happy hour.
I think it’s a fun place to try different types of dishes over drinks without hurting your wallet. I will definitely go back to this place with a few more friends and try to order everything on their happy hour menu and yakitori menu.

My dining experience recently at Kingyo, a great Japanese izakaya in Vancouver inspired me to try out izakayas in Seattle. This led me to visit Issian in Wallingford for happy hour. Issian’s menu offerings is quite varied. They have robatayaki, sushi, sashimi and izakaya fare.
Issian offers a daily happy hour from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. The happy hour menu is quite lengthy and it is reasonably priced. There are many offerings on it that are $ 5 or less. They also offer pints of Sapporo and Pike Brewing’s Kilt Lifter for $ 3. Sake and wine are also on special.
Upon arriving, you need to wait to be seated. The interior is quite spacious with high ceilings. I was seated at the sushi bar and would recommend this. What is cool about sitting here is that the staff brings you the food by placing it on a big serving paddle which you then grab your dish off of.
The regular menu has quite a number of interesting dishes. If it is happy hour time, you might want to order some happy hour items with a few from the regular menu. On this visit, I ordered strictly from the happy hour menu. Tried the Japanese Fried Chicken (JFC) salad ($ 5 HH), an order of takoyaki ($ 4 HH), yakitori ($ 1 HH), yakiton ($ 1 HH) and a pint of Sapporo to wash it down.
The JFC salad is really large for a happy hour eat. In fact, it comes on a big plate. The salad consists of JFC on top of spinach leaves covered with a creamy dressing. The chicken is nicely fried and doesn’t taste oily which was good. If you are dining alone here and order this, don’t order too many other things otherwise you won’t be able eat everything.
The takoyaki here is great. The dish was full of bonito flakes on top. The takoyaki has a nice gooey on the inside texture. And most importantly, they tasted fresh. Not like they were premade/​previously frozen.
For those who don’t know what yakitori and yakiton are, they are barbecue skewers. Yakitori is chicken and yakiton is pork belly. Both were really good. I like the the preparation that they used on the skewers. And they give you this special salt on the side to dip the skewers in. Since they are only $ 1 each, it is worthwhile to order several since they are inexpensive.
If you are looking for a reasonably priced happy hour in Wallingford with a nice selection of Japanese food offerings and a cool dining experience, I would recommend Issian.

We came during happy hour and the prices were very reasonable. The food was delicious. The takoyaki, tuna tartar, crispy chicken wings were really good. The outside layer of the agedashi tofu wasn’t exactly what we expected, but it was still good.
The reason we came though was for the tuna collar, which was amazing and definitely worth the price!

Came here with a group of friends on a Sunday night and the food was surprisingly cheap. As a group we got a tofu dish, which was amazing; the Japanese fried chicken, which was good but not as flavorful as korean fried chicken imo; the volcano roll, which was very flavorful in terms of the sauce, and the tuna collar.
Oh the tuna collar was definitely a pleasant surprise! We did not expect it to be so big. It’s definitely a dish to be shared.
Given the value, I’d come back again.

This place has decent food and late night Happy hour.
But they need to improve on a few things.
The biggest is the ventilation system. OMG the roof will filled with smoke from the grill, it felt like at any moment the sprinkler could have gone off, or someone could have called the Fire Department.
The 2^nd thing that needs improvement on is the service, I hate going to places that when they immediately sit you down, the waitress doesnt even give you time to even take off your coat before coming and asking us to order. Once I told her we needed a few minutes, she didnt come back again for another 15 minutes to take our First order.
3^rd. Consolidate your menu, or at least present it better. There are literally 4 – 5 different menu going around. There are Dinner, Happy hour, specials, drinks, and the skewers menu. It can be quite confusing on what things are.

I used to work at a higher end conveyor belt sushi restaurant so I know my japanese food pretty well… and I am a huge fan of sushi. This place is great!
The day we went here, we really decided to try out musashi’s chrisashi bowl (another nearby sushi joint) but they were closed so we walked around wallingford and bumped right into this place and decided to try it out.
Issian also had a chirashi bowl for a pretty good price. While I was waiting for the bowl, my bf and I also ordered some yakiton and yakitori and holy crap, they are both a must-​try. I am a huge pork belly girl and the way they stone grill it is A1; i honestly could eat it all day *drooool*. I don’t go crazy for chicken at sushi places, but this yakitori was really good! The servers were very kind.
The chirashi bowl had a good variety of fresh fish. Great quality for a reasonable price.
Definitely a place to try out.

We came here for happy hour on weekend night. We ordered a few things including croquette, tuna collar, pork belly, chicken thigh, hamachi usuzukuri, and baby octopus. My favorite was the pork belly — perfectly salted and fatty. The baby octopus was good too. It looked strange and not exactly appetizing, but I liked the crunchy texture and mild flavor. The usuzukuri was disappointing. The sauce didn’t complement the fish very well. My bf LOVED the tuna collar. It is an excellent deal for only $ 7.80. It is a huge dish. I thought the fish was a little dry, but it is too good of a deal to pass up.
I don’t think I’d be back. Bf would love to come back just to order the tuna collar with a bowl of rice.

Pretty good yakatori and beer. If you are hankering for skewers, from chicken to pork belly to octopus, the goods here are super salty and pair well with beer.
The food here ranges from good to average depending on what you order. We had a mixed poke dish with salmon, avocado, tuna and yellowtail with some nice tang. Other items included some heavy tasting agadashi tofu, two orders of inexpensive, just-​okay maki. The beef happy hour side was salty and bone-​in. They mistakenly brought a big tempura order to our table, which was staggering in size. The smaller order we got later was still substantial. The server at our table was inexperienced, but others came to check in on us who knew their stuff. I appreciate all the greetings and goodbyes here announcing customer comings and goings.
This is a decent option for Japanese bar food in Seattle, keeping in mind its a-​okay.