Okiway

I came here for my birthday with a group of 15, and I couldn’t have been happier. The owners Amanda and Vincent were incredibly gracious hosts, the space was lovely, and the food impressed. The menu was unique and welcome as far as izakayas in Brooklyn go. Will definitely be coming back to work through it all

I was so excited to try Okiway when it first opened, but every time I went, they were randomly closed. Then one day I got my wish! And it was meh.
Honestly, the appetizer portions are tiny (especially for the price), and nothing was really worth writing about. The shrimp dumplings were shrimp dumplings. The avocado tempura was not worth $ 5. But it’s okay, because I came for the main event (Spicy Hiroshima)…
And it was gross. I couldn’t eat it. Pure bbq sauce. I don’t know what I expected, but the sauce tasted like something you’d buy in a bottle and was way overpowering. And I love salt and condiments, but I took 3 bites before giving it to my boyfriend who was pretty indifferent about it but ate it anyway.
To be fair, this review is from shortly after they opened, so maybe it’s good now! But I have no desire to go back. I paid a premium to walk out the door starving. The only reason I’m giving it 3 stars instead of 2 is because my boyfriend will eat anything and didn’t absolutely hate it. The waitress was also nice, so I can’t fault the service, just the food.

Food you have never had before Tokyo. Plus some is the usual dishes. Try it. Very special.

You see their stickers all over the city. Which can get a tad annoying when you’re walking around the east village craving falafel. But I’ll live. The food is tasty and fun. Especially for a neighborhood with a couple nice sushi restaurants. It’s refreshing to have an alt for Japanese cuisine. Service was also exceptional and the saki kept flowing. Go. Have fun. Be merry.

Came back to this place recently because I was craving a delicious okonomiyaki, but instead I got soggy and flavorless cabbage patty after an hour’s worth of wait. No amount of yuzu salt, nor sriracha mayo could save it. It was just bad. The food definitely hit a decline since last time, especially the wait time for a half empty restaurant… 30 minutes to get the gyozas, and another 45 for the okonomiyaki. Disappointed because it’s inconsistent. I’ve been going to Otafuku in the city for 10+ years, and it’s always been great and consistent, and that’s what Okiway is missing.

Awesome vibe. Love it. If you happen to be in neighborhood, you need to check out this place at Flushing Ave. I like the laid-​back atmosphere. Feel much better than Japanese restaurants at Astor place, village. Not crowded and you can really enjoy your time there. No rush. The Japanese pancake tastes awesome. I will go back for the pork belly pancake.

Atmosphere/​design of the place is cool, but food was terrible! I was looking forward to trying out place because it looked good from the outside, but it was so bad. First of all, the service was terrible. There were two waitresses serving a pretty empty restaurant (there were only three tables filled). They seemed more interested in talking to each other and simply walking around the room looking around at nothing/​avoiding eye contact with customers than actually serving anyone or taking orders. It took forever for someone to take our order.
We ordered:
–shijemi mushrooms in foil (horrible: tasted like salted water/​ugly presentation)
–grilled king mushroom (also horrible: tasted like mushroomy salted water, unappealing texture)
–kale caesar salad (this was actually pretty good, but it’s hard to mess up a salad)
–spicy hiroshima okonomiyaki
(the flavor was okay, but it is WAY too expensive for basically ramen with sauce. The noodles were not crispy and there was no pork belly! We paid $ 15.50 for ramen noodles.)
I rarely complain about food to restaurants, but we had to speak up about this. We told the waitress that we didn’t find any pork belly in the ramen. She seemed pretty apathetic about it, but went and told the manager. The manager came over and explained that the pork belly «evaporates» when they cook it. He asked us if we wanted something else, but we just wanted to leave at that point. The waitress then brought us each a little glass of sake, on the house. That was nice, but it didn’t make up for the horrible food and inattentive service. It was also overpriced. I won’t be coming back.

I live pretty close to this new restaurant and I have seen stickers everywhere about this place so I finally caved with my roommate (despite the low Unilocal reviews) and tried the place.
Food:
The Salmon Tartare was the first thing that came out. The dish was really small, but it was delicious. It was a little too heavy handed in the mayo; I expect salmon tartare to be light and refreshing… not thick.
The Chicken Naban was the next thing we received. The sauce was sub par, but the chicken itself was actually extremely salty. I have had chicken nanban at a lot of different locations in NY and the dish is prettt simple, but somehow Okiway made it way too salty. It was difficult to eat without rice and it was great to have the salad on the side. I would not order again.
The Okinomiyaki is their signaure dish. Out of all the things we tried, this dish was the best tasting, but just in comparison to the other two. The batter was still a little bit raw and it was much thicker than the usual Okinoooyakis I’ve had, but it was still okay in taste. Also, I think the bacon in the dish made it much heavier than it needed to be. This would be the only thing I might come back for.
All in all — the dishes here are pretty small and overpriced in my opinion. I will not be coming back; the service was nice in the sense where everyone was nice. However, the environment seemed unprofessional and I saw servers looking through their phones while leaning against the bar. The ambiance of the place is great with a prime location, but the restaurant should shift their focus to the quality of the food and service.

Pretty solid. You can get okonomiyaki in various Japanese izakaya around the city, but this is the first place I’m aware of that specializes in it. The menu is not entirely traditional, but, this being Bushwick, that wasn’t much of a shocker. My friend and I split the classic and spicy variations on the Hiroshima, and I enjoyed them both. Probably liked the spicy a bit better.
The beer menu also has more than the standard Sapporo. I had an Orion, which is slightly harder to find, and my friend really liked the sake/​hot cider combination she had.

I thought Okiway was a band.
When signs started appearing on the subway, sidewalks and walls around the Montrose Avenue L in the spring, I assumed this was a hipster indie trio that had taken the Japanese pancake and used it as a moniker.
Later I discovered this was the name of the worst new restaurant in Bushwick.
To be honest, the food at Okiway is probably worthy of two stars, but I’m going to go ahead and subtract a star for this obnoxious advertising campaign. I’ll justify it because the arrogance of covering the public services of a transportation system — in violation of the rules — pairs well with the restaurant’s bastardization of classic cooking technique.
I’m all for reinvention. I don’t need an okonomiyaki or any other food to be slavishly prepared the way it is in Osaka. I do, however, expect it to be good.
The restaurant makes takoyaki in the front of the house, which is relatively common. This transparency means I got to see a bored looking woman halfheartedly spread the batter around. There’s none of the precision and timing you see at other places around town. The results is a nearly inedible ball of dough with microscopic pieces of octopus.
Elsewhere our gyoza arrived raw the first time and simply undercooked after sending it back to the kitchen. Salmon tartare is better at nearly every other of the half-​dozen places around town where I’ve sampled it and the skewers, despite being advertised at the «best you will ever taste,» are mediocre.
The lone bright spot is the okonomiyaki itself. We ordered it Hiroshima style. It’s great to have this dish on the menu at a place in Brooklyn, as usually it appears in the City just as a special. Things would be pretty bad if the restaurant couldn’t nail its eponymous dish.
I doubt I’ll return for this dish, as the service is a combination of pretentiousness and cluelessness that pretty damn hard to find outside of North Brooklyn. There are long yet woefully inaccurate descriptions of dishes. Follow up questions aren’t answered. There is much bragging about the Japanese beer list, yet most of is gone or quite common. We’re left with a waiter telling us to have a Sapporo simply because it’s «Japanese.»
Sorry no. This isn’t good enough. This isn’t good enough after the amount of money spent on public relations coverage. This isn’t good enough after the «viral» advertising campaign. This isn’t good enough after being randomly closed the first time I tried to visit during business hours. This isn’t good enough coming after the pleas on social media to give the restaurant a second choice after a rocky opening.
This isn’t good enough for the neighborhood — and I won’t be back.

Let’s start off with — I don’t get it. All i remember is cabbage on a tortilla — what is going on? A sprinkle of bonito flakes does not constitute a japanese dish.
Our group was a collection of peeps that have travelled all over and I would say is also very open-​minded when it comes to food. Plain and simple, everyone was disappointed and we had to go grab a bite to eat somewhere else afterwards.
We tried:
Classic Osaka — now this is the dish that started to tank the whole experience. It was the first dish to arrive, and as we all looked for pork belly with extreme excitement we were disappointed to find 2 undercooked bacon slices. Do not ever label undercooked bacon slices as pork belly. Additionally, between the cabbage and over-​sprinkling of bonito flakes, no one really ate any of this.
Tako fried — where was the tako?
Shrimp Gyoza — undercooked casing and no flavor to the filling. Store bought will do much better.
Chicken Nanban — meh. Probably the best of the worst dishes but nothing to rate over 2.5 stars
The décor is so trying to be hip but skateboards on walls has been done. I’m sure the owners are nice people but this is a flop, and I’m actually upset that out of all the new spots we picked this one to try. Please note that I am not an angry customer — service was fine and the atmosphere mellow. But the food is just blah — how do you serve japanese food with no flavor? Over-​hyped.
Whomp whomp.

listen. I can’t lie and say I don’t give sh! t about this place. I’ve been anticipating its opening for a year. I’m all for bringing this kind of food in Bushwick; having King Noodle right across the street and having a bomb Ethiopian joint next door. I’m loving the introduction of different cultures in the hood.
I make my own okonomiyaki. my brother makes it. my mother makes it. I know what the deal is. I’ve been to japan and eaten this stuff from a street vendor. I frequent random yakitori and Japanese spots to get my fix. BUT OKIWAY DOES IT DIFFERENT. the flavor combinations are a whirlwind of excitement to me. Spicy Hiroshima? get it. it’s a pancake topped with kewpie mayonnaise, katsu sauce and creepy ass bonito flakes. pork belly, crispy ramen noodles and spicy otafuku sauce! for a spice lover, this is my jam. every bite was sweet, spicy, creamy, chewy and indulgent. the Mexican Osaka? holy shat balls, people.
the Chicken Nanban. now, let’s talk about this. the «Nanban» style derives from Kyushu; a version of chicken katsu but the batter is much airy and nanban sauce is used to coat the chicken. it’s served with tartar sauce; which is my FAVORITE!!! try it. it’s definitely different than your usual fried chicken. it’s clutch as f*ck.
Salmon Tartare is not worth it. I’m a tuna fan and I just didn’t like how «creamy» and slimy it was. Takoyaki is fine. It’s nothing like my favorite at Otafuku. skip it.
onto the main spectacular feature of this joint. the BLACK SQUID INK FRIED RICE. omaijizzleinmypizzle! every bite. every single effing bite of this rice was a buttery heaven in my mouth. I couldn’t stop eating it. the portion of this dish is huge and the leftovers lasted me two meals. if you’re not comfortable with your date companion, just beware… your lips, teeth, gums and tongue will turn BLACK. it is not attractive, yo. with this warning, just eat this dish with your buddies or a bae who’s seen you without makeup or walked in on your using the toilet.
the service was aiiiiiite, but everyone is super hipster and adorable. the open kitchen is cool and you feel so young, hip and in-​the-​know because you are here. your sake comes in a plastic can. cool.

Okiway’s arrival has been hyped up for over a year, and naturally, they were definitely slammed once their doors finally opened. Luckily they seemed to have worked out most of their kinks, so take everything you see on this page with a grain of salt.
I’m no stranger to okonomiyaki after living in Japan, and I was super excited that an okonomiyaki restaurant was coming to Brooklyn (and in my hood, no less!). Their menu has a bunch of different traditional izakaya foods, but we stayed primarily to their namesake and tried:
Takoyaki– pretty damn authentic. Only complaint was that some pieces didn’t have any octopus at all in them, and were essentially a ball of dough.
Classic Osaka Okonomiyaki– very heavy handed on the cabbage and light on the otafuku sauce. Overall very tasty, but needed a bit more sauce.
Classic Hiroshima Okonomiyaki– this one was fantastic. The noodles were crispy, the okonomiyaki was doused in otafuku sauce, and there were huge pieces of pork belly throughout.
Okiway serves their okonomiyaki with two types of Japanese mayo on the side: miso and wasabi. The miso was good but I’m not a huge mayo fan in the first place, so I wish they offered more otafuku sauce on the side instead.
Service was really friendly and the owner (I think?) even came over to check on us. However, our food took a really long time to come out; Okiway was almost empty when we came around 10:00pm on a Saturday night, but it still took around 30 – 40 minutes to get our food.
Despite the long wait times, Okiway is definitely promising. Can’t wait to see what else is to come!

I like what they’re doing, bringing some Japanese culture to bushwick. They’ve got a lot of kinks to work out, though.
Service was messy — they delivered someone else’s food to our table, which we sent back, then they brought our order — and it was wrong. We ate it anyway rather than wait to have it corrected.
We had:
Takoyaki — this was good
Okra Tempura — it was okay. not very flavorful.
Cactus Sashimi — basically flavorless.
Classic Osaka Okinomiyaki — decent, but not amazing. Could stand to be more flavorful.
Classic Hiroshima Okinomiyaki — no soba noodles as promised, got ramen instead. It was alright.
I do hope they turn this around and improve, as I do very much like the idea of the place. The execution just isn’t there yet.

Oh god. I don’t know why many strangers wrote bad reviews! I had really sweet experience at Okiway.
I know Okiway from my friend who does food instagram @thirdculturefood :)
Classic Hiroshimayaki — Flavor was good. Size was perfect. Not too salty you can add Otafuku sauce/​Yuzu mayo and Wasabi mayo if you want.
As good mean, Nothing special. I mean, Okonomiyaki is mom’s home cooking.
Do you know how difficult to make REAL MOM’S HOME TASTE in NewYork.
So I totally understand price were not too cheap. This is not Japan.
I’m just happy to have Okonomiyaki place in Bushwick. Good choice. Thank you.
Trust me I grew up west side of Japan which is most famous Okonomiyaki area.
They make very similar taste of my home town.
I will back again!
Enjoy!

If your idea of fine dining is that of an over-​priced over-​rated bland-​tasting hipster experience, then Okiway is definitely the place for you. I usually don’t write Unilocal reviews, but my time there was so horrendous that I felt compelled to say something about not-​so-​amazing food and amazingly poor management.
I go in with my boyfriend, look at the menu. 15 dollars for okinomiyaki, which is a typical japanese street food consisting of egg, cabbage, various sauces, and pork belly, is just a little outrageous. Even though the majority of the young hipster clientele does not seem to mind.
We place our order for two dishes, wait for more than thirty minutes, during which our server tried very hard to ignore us. Our stomachs grumbling, we remind her that we actually did order food, she proceeds to «check up on our order». It takes 5 minutes to make the dish itself, on top of which the place was not even crowded. Then of course, 5 minutes later, our plates come out.
I have to admit, the food was ok. But anything would be okay if it was drowned in okinomiyaki sauce and kewpie mayonnaise. As we ravenously devour the meagre portions given, I exclaimed: «wow it even has pork belly», which was a tiny piece. 15 dollars for layers of bland cabbage, 2 pieces of pork, egg, and non-​seasoned ramen topped with massive sauce – I’m not so impressed.
Lastly, to cap our amazing evening, after my boyfriend gave the waitress two twenties for 28 dollars total of food, she returns with two singles and a ten. I guess I’ll forever be left with this mystery: did she expect us to actually give her ten bucks for the worst service possible, or did she simply not care anymore and just wanted to make us look like dicks for leaving her two???
I realize that some people may not agree with me. That’s fine, but as a person who has grown up in Asia, the only thing I know is that food is what it is and has to be branded for what it is.

First of all, other reviewers need to realize that this restaurant is fairly new and still getting acclimated to their new locale as well as getting comfortable — you always need to break in a new pair of shoes, so I’ll speak with that in mind.
The food is definitely better than I anticipated — walking in, I expected just typical Japanese-​style bar food (which it is, but with a twist). The pancakes were unique, with my husband trying the Hiroshima (a nice spicy kick), while I had the original Osaka. Both were completely different, but both also delicious.
We started off the meal with shrimp gyoza which has obviously been made with a house recipe. They weren’t greasy at all as you get in some restaurants, and they were cooked to perfection.
The octopus balls were also another phenomenal addition to the meal, and here is where we ran into the one problem. The staff is still learning the ropes, and they mismanaged the octopus ball ordering (everyone seemed to be ordering it at the same time) so ours was forgotten. Not to worry though because the staff more than made up for the delay by providing us with a free sake flight and a dessert beer on the house .
Speaking of beer — try the wasabi beer.
All in all this place will only get better with time so get there now before it becomes so popular you’ll be waiting in line to get in!

I didn’t expect to be able to have same okonomiyaki when I was in Japan.
I tried 4 kinds and I recommend spicy hiroshima.
You must try it out!!!
I will definitely come back here when I miss Japan.

Be prepared to enter a war of attrition and lose. How long can the curt waitress lie to you that your food is ‘coming right up’ vs. how long can you wait. We made it almost 2 hours before accepting that we were only going to get 1 out of 2 of the entrees we ordered and without apology. I’ve never been so defeated/​angry/​neglected during a dining experience.
I had seen the vegan okonomiyaki posted on bushwickdaily and on their doors before opening so that’s why we came to the restaurant in the first place. Apparently, it’s no longer on the menu but the waitress said they would make it for me if I ‘really wanted it’ so I thought it would be okay to order. If you can’t make something that’s fine but please say you can’t and I will leave with no hard feelings. Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.
After over an hour of waiting my date received her meal and I told her to eat because I was still hopeful. She got her food and several staff members came by and asked her how it was and when I asked where mine was the waitress was very short with me before she abruptly turned her back and walked away. After that encounter she refused to even make eye-​contact with our table. 30 more minutes of waiting and my date begrudgingly finished her food I was ready to concede and eat leftovers at home.
We payed the check and I talked to a man with a red hat who was lingering around the staff — he said the owner would call us the next day to apologize. I think that call must be in line after the vegan okonomiyaki. Still waiting.
UPDATED:
Got a call from the owner and am looking forward to trying the food.

Wonderful and unique dining experience at Okiway!
I never had this type of «Japanese comfort» food before. It was delicious!
Their main dish is Okonomiyaki which is a Japanese pancake. No one else in NYC is serving this dish.
Highlight dishes to order:
Spicey okonomiyaki, wasabi guacamole, wasabi beer, cactus shashimi, shrimp gyoza, & edamame.
Every dish was special and beautiful — Like nothing I’ve ever tried before.
Will be heading back here soon!