Ijo Izakaya

Lovely little restaurant with v. good Japanese food. Four stars because it was too cold inside.

The food was great!

We came as a family on Valentine’s Day, and they were able to accommodate.

Oden was excellent. Yellowtail carpaccio was awesome. Sashimi was thick and delicious.

Thank you to the staff and chef. We will return again.

Service was very slow; we were 3 guests and only the food for one guest arrived first, followed by a long wait.

SO sorry to report that the food here was just not appetizing. Nice people and all....but the food needs huge improvement.

Overall just an okay experience, wouldn't recommend nor come back. Fairly small shop with one waitress, not much variety of sushi rolls. The sashimi combo was very disappointing since it was a 20 piece with only 4 varieties of the standard fish. The tuna was very mushy which makes me think it had been frozen for too long. Only the salmon was great even though I had a bone in one piece. The pieces were also not the same size which is disappointing. Lastly we had booked a reservation and had to wait over 20 minutes to be seated. Next time I will try Saul's next door because it looked great and was much busier. There's also another sushi restaurant on the corner that looked more bustling.

This was a nice enough restaurant (wasn’t the one I thought I had booked). The ambiance is bland, they have a mock- sushi bar, but prepare in the back kitchen. The food was surprisingly good across the board with the exception of sushi that was just mediocre (they charged as though the food was great).

The server flipped the lights off and on when she wanted us to go (it was 9:15, but just tell us if you’re closed) and water came shooting out of the ceiling above (not their fault, but it lasted two minutes).

I’m not going back - it was fine, but this restaurant isn’t worth booking a reservation for when there is so much great Japanese in Oakland.

I went here on a double date and had a lovely time. Our server was kind and attentive, and the food was tasty and generous. I highly recommend the eggplant dish and tuna nigiri.

Very friendly service at comfortable neighborhood restaurant with a varied menu and amazing happy hour bites. The fried oysters were succulent inside their crackly batter and the generous vegetable tempura was crispy -- brought instantly from the fryer to the table. We had the salmon collar daily special. While nicely seasoned, the fish was a little too firm for my taste. Perhaps other folks prefer their fish to be well cooked. Maybe they can ask the customer how well done they'd like their fish, as restaurants do for steak!

Generous portions and friendly service. Very casual.

We ordered the 20 piece tray, delicious large portions of fish. Salad, tofu and other items were tasty also.

The food is well-crafted and very fresh. The menu is very appealing. The good thing is everything tastes quite good. The bad thing is one orders too much, making this tiny, very informal venue, quite expensive.
But i've gone back. So, obviously, it is worth it.

Insipid food, gummy noodles, under-cooked shrimp, tasteless soup.

Take2! Enjoyed it!

Mother’s Day Treat from My Brother...

I would highly recommend the restaurant. Excellent Quality! Impressive! Fabulous! Delighted.

We had several dishes and everything was great. The menu had a wide variety of choices and was well priced- we particularly enjoyed it! Amazing food & Very inexpensive for what it is as well. They were divine. Very good indeed!

Thank you Tara. "The service was warm friendly and was very quick"... which is really pretty rare.

So happy to have this new and improved Sushi restaurant so close to home!

We had reservations for 7pm and we were seated 30 minutes later. Only one front of the house person and it is not enough, it affects service.

Excellent value and food quality. The menu is varied from sushi to robata yaki to noodles. The happy hour tapas such as karaage were tasty and $5!

Too expensive and only one waitress for all the tables. As a result, forgotten orders and a long wait for everything. Food pretty good once it arrived, but expensive.