Fukada

Fukada
8683 Irvine Center Dr
Irvine, CA 92618
(949) 341-0111

Fukada has been on my radar for a while after its immense popularity and buzz on yelp, along with a review for the spicy tuna bowl from Hungry girl in Taipei.  It specializes in quick, healthy japanese food at relatively cheap prices.  The most popular thing on the menu is a combo of noodles (choice of soba or udon served hot or cold) and a donburi bowl (tempura, curry, tentoji, spicy tuna, or unagi).

This combination is more of a lunch item for me, but unfortunately they close at 2 for lunch and then reopen at 5 for dinner.  Boyfriend and I couldn’t make it before 2, so we ended up going for dinner.  I was forewarned by yelp of the no reservations and long lines.  When we went on a Saturday night, it definitely was busy.

The restaurant is pretty small. There are a few small tables, a bar, a few medium tables and one big long table in the middle where strangers may share a meal.  However, I think that part of the long wait is more inefficiency than anything.  Standing there waiting and observing, I had a sudden urge to take over and direct the staff, something I’ve never had an urge to do.  The food is simple to make and comes out fast.  But the staff takes a long time to get the check to the customers and clean off the tables.  If they were more efficient with their turn around time, they could seat a lot more customers.

Based on my research, I really wanted to
try the spicy tuna bowl with brown rice.  Unfortunately, they were out
of brown rice for the night!  Both Boyfriend and I opted for the combination meal which gives you noodles and a donburi bowl for $10.95.  For my noodles, I chose hot udon with sansai (translated as mountain vegetables).  You can order your noodles with either sansai or with tempura shavings. I also ordered tentoji-don, which is basically shrimp tempura with egg and sauce.  I chose this one because Boyfriend wanted the spicy tuna and I thought we should try different things.
Boyfriend ordered the hot udon with sansai and spicy tuna bowl.

Our food arrived almost as soon as we ordered it.  I don’t really know what the mix of vegetables were.  I did like them though.  I didn’t like the broth of the udon.  I thought it was salty and lacking any other sort of flavor.  Boyfriend didn’t like it either.  The udon noodles were nice and chewy.  They were also an almost opaque translucent color which I haven’t seen before.  Some yelpers commented that they make their own udon.  I don’t know if they do, but this definitely did look different from the store bought udon.

My tentoji bowl was quite tasty.

The egg was really fluffy and mixed perfectly with the rice.  However, the highlight of the meal was definitely the spicy tuna that people have been raving about.  It’s more mashed and creamy than the spicy tuna I’m used to eating.

It’s also not really spicy.  It’s just this really creamy, yummy mashed  tuna concoction served on rice.  Neither Boyfriend or I could stop eating it.

I wanted to try their dessert, which is agar jelly served with fruit and ice cream, but we didn’t have time.  If I come back again, I just want the spicy tuna over rice. By itself, it costs $10.50. I’m not sure of the portion size though.

The servers were friendly and attentive. I am definitely not a fan of the wait though. Next time, I might just get my order to go.  They have a second location which is a fast food to-go version.  Update: We now visit the second to-go store often to pick up tuna bowls to-go.  They offer both the tuna bowls and the udon.