Izakaya Sozai, San Francisco CA

The dining area is freezing. It's a bit weird to see the wait staff and cooks dressed in sleeveless while customers are wearing their jackets and scarves.

Food is ok. The ramen is forgettable. The grilled octopus was rubbery. Spicy tuna appetizer was passable.

Great Izakaya restaurant, with both authentic and modern takes on delicious Japanese tapas. You can go for some ramen, or straight up Izakaya. Still thinking about that miso eggplant and enoki bacon skewer. Highly recommend!

I had the salmon sashimi on top of a bed of a crispy rice patty. I also had the ramen with pork and a soft boiled egg. Both dishes were really tasty. The attention to detail is excellent.

Absurd pricing for the portions and quality. Skewers tend to be undersized and of meh quality. Gyudon is full of soggy, pasty rice, but at least the meat is good. Many items served cold and when should be hot. Some of the more Japanese dishes are not made in the correct way and cannot be even vaguely described as authentic. And the service and ambiance is far from exceptional.

Great food, great service, and a really cozy atmosphere.

This was the only place that graciously agreed to seat us at 9: 50PM and we really appreciated that.

The owner Sumie is very kind, and the Tonkatsu Ramen is wonderful.

Meh. I don't think it's worth the money. Service is slow and tonkatsu ramen broth was so thick it was like stew and several of my noodles were clumped together.

Incredible! Every dish on their menu is a hit; highly recommend the mushroom udon noodles, hamachi crudo, grilled eggplant and the salmon crudo!

We arrived 20 minute prior to our reservation and the table was set and ready to receive us. We were seated within a few minutes and put in an order for a bottle of Sake. Our 2 other friends arrived in time when the bottle showed up at our table in an ice bin.

After a round of Sake to quench our throats, we were ready to place our food orders. We scanned the QR Code on the table. We not only orders foods off the menu but from the Chefs Menu posted on the wall.

This is a Tapas concept so hope other customers don't expect portions to be plentiful. It's all about the varieties, great place for groups and a wonderful selection of Sake offered.

Our party of 4 sat indoor, next to the entrance. The place was cozy and the staffs were really friendly.

I noticed there's a chefs table for 2, at the high counter. A party for 2 would be perfect for that spot. Maybe I'll request for that spot on a future visit.

The staff here was very friendly and accommodating. The food was also good. Just make sure you RSVP b/c this place gets busy!

Tl;dr Party of two paid $100 for only 6 dishes (4 of which were literally bite-sized), with an hour total wait time between ordering and receiving the last dish. Would absolutely not recommend to anyone who values good food and a good time (esp.at a reasonable price).

My girlfriend and I came here for a date night thinking it would be a great evening spent with great food. Big, big mistake.

We ordered 6 dishes: the uni udon (which took an hour to even hit our table), 2x beef tongue skewer, clam chowder cream croquettes, A5 wagyu nigiri, and spicy tuna crispy rice.

The beef tongue skewers were overly chewy, lacking in flavor, and the second order was cold when it arrived.

The croquettes were admittedly fantastic (if you do decide against your best interests to come here, at the very least this will be an appetizing addition to your table), but the A5 wagyu nigiri was incredibly disappointing. There are countless places in SF that do it better (re: Rintaro, Robin, as infinitum) so go there instead to avoid an expensive disappointment.

Finally, it took an hour between ordering and then finally receiving the uni udon and spicy tuna crispy rice. When we asked the waitress why it took so long, we were actually genuinely curious.

Unfortunately, the waitress seemed to take it personally and curtly replied, "if you wanted it sooner, you should have told the chef to prepare it ASAP because we always serve our noodle dishes last. "

First: How were we supposed to know to make that (very, very specific) request to the chef just to make sure we'd get the noodles in a reasonable time? Shouldn't it be the bare minimum that we receive our dishes in a timely manner, sans obscure chef requests? This felt more like a cheap excuse than accepting responsibility.

Second: We were done with our latest dish (the skewer) 20 whole minutes before the udon arrived. There is no conceivable nor logical reason why it took so long for us to get the noodles.

Needless to say, we were beyond confused and upset. Having to wait long times for (honestly sub-par) food is already a red flag. The customer service was just the final blow; it was rude, dismissive, and felt as if the waitress was making excuses for herself and the staff at the cost of invalidating our experiences and genuine frustrations.

To add insult to injury, the cherry on top was when I paid with AmEx, and the waitress THREW the card back down on the table and curtly said they didn't accept American Express before going back to the cashier.

In sum, if you really want to check out this restaurant, and if you're going to order the uni udon- make sure to specify you want it ASAP because otherwise they apparently won't be serving it to you until you're one hour away from writing a very (in this author's honest opinion, justifiably) angry review.

Oh, and don't be an AmEx user too.

Food was overall disappointing. Especially given the price. Don’t go there if you are looking for high quality yakitori or authentic izakaya tapas.

Great Ramen, lot of items to add on. We added the pork belly, spicy miso, and garlic chips. Also outstanding were the bacon wrapped moochi and the fried chicken skin skewers. Great meal, great service!

I used to love coming here a lot, I haven’t been for a bit because of the pandemic. The takoyaki, miso cod and clam chowder croquette are really tasty and cooked perfectly. The ramen however was way too peppery, it is a bit overwhelming! The noodles are decent and the pork was juicy but that pepper flavor is too much

I know Izakayas are different in Northern California, compared to Japan, so I will review based on the local definition. We went for the skewers. The food was served cold; rather than the warm ready skewers being brought out as soon as they are ready. The food was good, staff were friendly. I guess much like other places a little understaffed. I also wish that they offered a choice between teriyaki sauce and just sea salt for seasoning. I thought the sashimi was fresh and amazing. The bacon wrapped enoki was creative and delicious. The tako wasabi hit the mark. The Sake was overpriced. But the house options worked well; especially the Otokoyama carafe. We enjoyed the experience, but it fell a little short of 5 stars. We will be back; so that’s a ringing endorsement.

A very homey feeling as you walk in you're greeted right away. I tried some bbq items and their ramen. I gotta say i was extremely impressed with the food! The skewers were very flavorful with a lot of different options. The ramen was flavorful and creamy very rich with flavor. And the service was awesome! I don't think my water cup ever got empty or without someone tending on us.