In my youth, Japanese restaurants were only family-owned and typically had a menu of teriyaki, tempura, rice bowls, and sashimi. Today, you’ll often see Japanese restaurants specializing in sushi, curry, barbecue, ramen, and even udon! Only a handful of original family-owned restaurants, such as Sawtelle Tempura House, Otomisan, and Azuma, still exist.
Azuma is an old-school Japanese restaurant in Gardena. The proprietors also own the Gardena Bowl Coffee Shop. The floorplan is unusual: the kitchen is in the center, with a small dining space in the front and a narrow passageway leading to the dining room in the back. Their regulars use the parking lot in the back and enter from the rear door.
When I first visited nearly 20 years ago, Azuma was known as a Japanese izakaya long before the word became known among Angelenos. The walls of the rear dining space were lined with strips of paper with Japanese characters. If you could read Japanese, you would have discovered their secret menu featuring Japanese tapas dishes.
Fortunately, the entire menu is now in English, and the paper strips are gone. They continue to serve Japanese comfort food, such as soups, curry, rice bowls, noodle dishes, tempura, and tonkatsu. If you’re seeking tapas, there is plenty to choose from, such as grilled meat skewers, tofu dishes, fried or grilled seafood, and even chazuke (rice with dashi broth).
Azuma is one of the better places to order tempura as it is crunchy and light. The shrimp is beautifully stretched straight and they typically include kabocha squash, one of my favorites. Their most popular dish is beef teriyaki, which is perfectly grilled and made with steak. Other popular items include chicken katsu, oyakodon, curry rice, and sashimi.
Here, you’ll find seldom-encountered Japanese home-style dishes like Omusoba (an omelet filled with stir-fried yakisoba noodles), Nikujyaga (a stew with pork, potatoes, and carrots), Saba Shioyaki (grilled mackerel), a variety of Chazuke (rice with dashi), and Konnyaku yam cake spiced with Japanese red pepper.
Steak lovers gravitate towards the Beef Teriyaki Combination Plate because it includes perfectly grilled steak smothered with teriyaki sauce. It’s available with croquette, tempura, sashimi, or broiled fish. Prices range from $29.10 to $34.20. A great deal is during lunch when a Beef Teriyaki and Tempura Lunch Combination is only $20.25.
Their bento offering that day wasn’t served in a bento box and more like a combination. The omelette rice was similar to egg foo young filled with steamed rice. It came with gyoza and macaroni salad.
If you’re seeking an izakaya experience, grilled skewers include chicken, gizzards, beef tongue, liver, meatballs, scallops, and bacon combined with okra, shrimp, or scallops. Prices range from $6.25 to $10.75 for 2 skewers. I enjoy pairing beer with okonomiyaki, a pancake mixed with pork and seafood and topped with dried bonito flakes. Wine, sake, shochu, or soju is also available.
Azuma’s food is tasty and well-prepared. While specialized dishes such as tempura, udon, or grilled meat skewers may be slightly better elsewhere, they provide an extensive menu that will please the most risk-averse person to the individual seeking their mom’s home cooking from Japan.
P.S. Don’t forget about their parking lot behind the restaurant.
Azuma, 16123 S Western Ave, Gardena; 310.532.8623; azumajapanese.site