Akane Chaya

Japanese interpretations of italian food are always… different. I can only imagine that’s why they have Japanese «Famiresu» classics like a hamburg steak set and curry rice. A lot of people won’t «get» the pasta, literally and figuratively.
This place is rad. The chef had a tall hat, which certainly looked impressive, and he did the «slappy» thing with my hamburg steak, so you know it’s legit.
Also they have cool forks.
They could afford to add some more upscale trappings, and snazz the place up, but to get out for under 30 for two with tip? I’ll takes what I can gets.

I feel so conflicted! I’m a huge fan of Japanese fusion spaghetti dishes and not only that but I absolutely love Spoon House … but but but, this place is just as comparable (if not … slightly better? I don’t know! Both are so good LOL)
Without further ado, order their Cod roe with smoked salmon, basil and cream spaghetti sauce! It’s pretty much a given. If you order it and eat it, you will have no regrets. I promise. Another honorable mention is the curry beef spaghetti, but the smoked salmon blows it out of the water.
The portions are very good and you will be left feeling very full. Each meal comes with a small complimentary salad. The food is absolutely delicious! I am still dreaming of that smoked salmon spaghetti.
Overall, quality is great. Service is friendly. Credit card accepted and there’s plenty of parking. I’d definitely come by again and try their other spaghetti selections. =)

I have had Akane Chaya on my bookmarks for awhile. Being a fan of Japanese spaghetti, I’ve been wanting to visit this place. It’s very close to my favorite store. Sanrio (hehe love any excuse to visit Hello Kitty heaven lol). In all seriousness, though I really have wanted to see how this place fares in terms of Japanese pasta.
When I finally got to check this place out, I chose to get the Combo C. This combo comes with pork cutlet and spaghetti with your choice of pasta sauce. The combo comes with soup, salad, potato salad, bread or rice. I was also fairly surprised to learn from waitress that they had an early bird special which meant I could get complimentary iced tea or hot coffee.
First up was the soup. They give a small corn chowder soup. I liked the soup a lot and wish it came in a bigger bowl.
The salad was something simple and had very light dressing. This was ok but nothing to special.
For my spaghetti, I chose to get it with meat sauce. I liked the long, soft noodles and subtle sweetness with the meat sauce.
The pork cutlet was good as well though I would prefer chicken to pork. Nevertheless the coating was very good in flavor. They give three pieces and it goes well with either the spaghetti or the rice.
The potato salad was creamy and slightly sweet. It was something I enjoyed as the last part of this meal. Similar to the soup, I wish they give a bigger portion. This was just a small taste.
Last but not least was the complimentary iced tea that I got. It comes unsweetened but they give syrup on the side which you can pour into the tea. The iced tea here is very refreshing.
I was very pleased with my visit to Akane Chaya and i can’t wait to be back! (PS I am coming back not so I can go to the Sanrio store nearby. i want to come back because the food here is delicious! The Sanrio store nearby is just a bonus ;))

This unassuming restaurant is hidden in the midst Pacific Square Plaza. The inside includes a great ambiance whether for a date, just to catch up with friends, or even dining alone! On a random Wednesday night, I ordered seafood spaghetti with white cream sauce, delicious, generous amount of seafood. Didn’t leave a heavy, after-​feel.
My 2 friends and I were there for a good 2 hours and no one rushed us. This may not be the place for you if you’re in a hurry. Service is a bit slow, but then again the waitress was a 1 woman show. She acknowledged us every time we had a request.
Overall, great experience and I’d come again.

Unilocal challenge 2016 (²⁸⁄₁₀₀)
Japanese food and spaghetti — two of my favorite things! Apparently my family used to come here when I was younger and we recently came back. Honestly, I think I like this place better than Spoon House. I usually love noodles with clams, but this time I got the salmon, scallops, and spinach with cream sauce. It was sooo good that I finished so fast! They also have good bread :)

Japanese Supagetti style restaurant. The restaurant itself is very nice. Clean, not too pricey, food came out well prepared.
The food itself was just ok for me. No huge complaints, just nothing you cant get a Curry House, or any other Japanese house.
I had the seafood Spaghetti pasta. Everything tasted well, just didn’t do it for me.

I came here on a saturday with some friends around 8pm and it was pretty empty (but it was also pretty late!). The menu is decent with lots of choices of curry, rice, and pasta. I decided on a creamy tomato type pasta but they said they were out of cream sauce, but they offered to custom make a pasta with cream added to a tomato base sauce. I got the #3 with seafood (I think it was tomato seafood pasta? with added cream) for $ 14 dollars and It came with a decent sized portion. The pasta itself was good, but not great. I felt like it had a slight japanese twist on something you could get at macaroni grill or another chain restaurant.
My friend got the #1 (the super seafood) for about $ 20 dollars (which is a little pricey but i understand its because of the seafood). The portion again was decent, not huge, and I also thought it was good but not great. My friend polished off the entire pasta in about 10 minutes though so he may have disagreed with me haha.
My other friend got the meat sauce combination w/​hamburger steak and that one came out with a HUGE portion. It had a decent size piece of hamburger steak, spaghetti & meat sauce, salad, AND rice. I didn’t try it unfortunately but my friend said he always orders this whenever he has a craving for Japanese spaghetti and he left satisfied.
Overall i would give this place more of a 3.5 star! I think I want to try other «japanese spaghetti» type places before I would come back here.

I went in there for the FIRST time, and told the waitresses this. I was looking at the menu and ordered, and was alone and had a magazine to read to keep me company. The cook/​owner then has them TURN DOWN THE LIGHTS at my table, as I was reading. I said «you can SEE that I am reading, right»? She goes to talk to him, and he says, ‘no, we turn down the lights at 5:00, this is our policy”. He wouldn’t budge. I told her that I thought it was so RUDE, and very unJapanese-​like. She said that she didn’t think it was rude. REALLY??? I got up and left, and NEVER came back. This is how you loose customers, and I eat out twice a day, and live within walking distance. Stupid. Really stupid.

Let’s cut to the chase, this Spoon house or here?
Two Japanese/​Italian restaurant across the street from each other.
Akane Chaya has a more intimate setting, and also offers more than standard spaghetti. There’s also curry rice, and set combos. Akane is also more expensive.
I would say spoon house has better spaghetti and pasta dishes, but Akane Chaya offers more and has a better ambiance

To be honest — after driving one hour to get to this restaurant, I was disappointed. One of my fave restaurants that has closed down was IL chianti at lomita, I haven’t had great Japanese pasta since then. I had high hopes tonight but was let down.
There were 3 of us, so we ordered:
1) #4 seafood with saffron cream sauce. Honestly the sauce was weak. pasta was al dente, seafood were small and uninspiring. I notice prices have gone up too compared to the prices shown on Unilocal pictures. I don’t mind the price, nor the seafood, but ultimately it was the sauce that disappointed me. I only tasted one dimensional salt flavor, not even black pepper can save it. It was not bad tasting but just very forgettable.
2) #12 chopped clam with mushrooms and white wine sauce and fresh basil. Same problem as the dish above, where’s the wine flavor??? Garlic flavor??? I tasted a very small amount of basil flavor and the rest just salt flavor. It could have use more wine and garlic flavor. Disappointed.
3) Hamburg and pork cutlet curry with rice — normal curry, I was not impressed by the hamburger meat, and the cutlet was small and thin. My biggest problem with this dish was it came with very little curry sauce, even eating with minimal curry sauce each bite, totally ran out of curry sauce when still had half the hamburger patty left, ¹⁄₃ bowl of rice. I asked the waitress if we can have a little bit more curry sauce, she asked how much I said just a little, so we can finish the rest of the dish. She checked with the other waitress and came back to tell us there will be a $ 2.5 charge. To me this is ridiculous, after paying $ 14.80 plus tips and tax for a plate of typical curry with uninspiring meat and less than typical curry sauce, you dare to ask me to pay another $ 3 for two spoons of curry sauce? We said never mind then. The owner /​chef told the waitress to give us the sauce for free, but unfortunately the damage is already done. I will never come back. It’s one thing if you give sufficient curry and we ate them all and need extra, then I would have no problem paying extra for it. But if you didn’t give us the proper amount and we had to ask you for it and you ask us to pay extra. That is just Wrong. While the waitresses were polite, it does not make up for mediocre food and the curry incident. Also apparently only pasta dish gets a dinner roll? There’s three of us, and the waitress asked who’s having curry and did not give vinegar and oil to the person eating curry. There were only 2 dinner rolls for the table. That’s pretty stingy!!! I think you should give a dinner roll per entrée at the minimum!!!

Ordered the seafood noodle combo dish with hamburger steak. They have large portions and ambiance is nice and simple. First few bites tasted great but soon became too salty for my taste. If u dont mind salty food, I give it a 4 star

Really good Japanese spaghetti and hamburg steak.
I ordered the seafood tomato cream sauce spaghetti and added basil. The combos come with soup, salad, and rice or bread. The entrees come with salad and bread. The portions are pretty big.
The bread rolls are really tasty. They come out toasted with a good crust and chewy interior along with oil and balsamic vinegar.
The fresh pepper grinder at each table is also a really nice touch.

I took family to this place the other day.
This place has been here for long time. I don’t know the back ground of this owner chef but this is like «old school nice hotel chef from Japan» type of foods. Pasta is super good, Curry is better than Curry specialized place and other menu are also tasty.
I had the pork ginger which was very smooth, my company ordered tonkatsu with sauce which was also super good!
The waitress was so friendly and the information she gave us was so helpful for the decision making what to eat. I strongly recommend this place.

A Japanese pasta restaurant. You don’t see this every day in so-​cal.
Upon walking in there was a terrible smell. I discovered later that night that it was because of the restrooms. Really pungent smell.
I got one of the combos — hamburger steak with a pasta. The pasta I got was the cream based one in the options.
Hamburger steak — I’m not a fan of this and I do not know why I got it. I can’t give a legitimate review of it.
The pasta — My first bite of this thing was that it sucked. Then like 2 bites later my mind was blown. I guess the sauce took some time to seep into the pasta. I couldn’t stop eating until I was finished with the pasta. I want to visit again to try another pasta.
I really liked the atmosphere of the restaurant — they had jazz music playing and the walls are dark. The smell was really bad though. Hopefully it was just for that one day…
I don’t think it’s worth the drive down to try this place so far. I’ll want to make another visit if I’m near by though.

The hamburger steak is good but for pasta… just go to Spoon House which is across the street.

This place finally reminded me why I don’t go to Olive Garden.
The ambiance of this place is very quant, cozy and charming. Seats are very limited so there will be a wait during lunch and dinner time. This is a great place to take you’re friends and gossip about you’re co-​workers you despise. The reason why is because this place is snug in between several business and the lighting here is very little dim, making you feel that you’re secrets are safe in this place.
I just love how their menu is not very pretentious. They are not trying to overwhelm you with super fancy ingredients. They keep it basic and wholesome. Their pasta is very light, not too creamy. The flavor is not too vigorous and ingredients compliments each other very well. The Hamburger steaks are cooked just right and comes with a side of rice, yummy! The Seafood Pasta, is just my favorite. I enjoy the fact that after I visit here, I don’t get that lethargic feeling after eating a pasta. Servers are very friendly and will help you determine what to get, just in case you couldn’t decide.
Moreover, the price of the food in this place is very reasonable. This place does not imitate Italian pasta, they gravitate more towards Japanese pasta. This might come a bit of disappointment for some people that are looking for that heavy, creamy pasta taste. The food portions are decent, works very well if you are on a diet.

After eating at Spoon House, I was told to try Akane Chaya to compare. Akane Chaya also offers Japanese spaghetti, and is located across the street from SH on Redondo Beach Blvd and Denker in Gardena. As you are facing Marukai Pacific, it is on the left side.
I ordered #4 — Spaghetti w/​clams, shrimp, squid & scallops ($ 11.75). The entrée also includes a complimentary salad and bread & oil. Compared to SH (3 Stars), I really enjoyed this spaghetti. The portion was perfect sized to be full, w/​o being stuffed. In addition, there was a fair amount of seafood compared to SH (and Tasting Kitchen) for the price. Lastly, the oil, garlic & pepper sauce was nice and light, and did not drown the al dente pasta: 5 Stars. On the other hand, the salad and bread were garden variety — What you would expect in a cafeteria: 3 Stars.
Regarding the ambiance, it is very Japanese. There are several tables, and two large tables for big parties or communal sitting. All of the clientele were speaking Japanese, including the two cute girls sitting next to me: 4 Stars. Likewise, the service was very good. The waitstaff was attentive, and the food came out quickly: 4 Stars.
I would definitely come back here vs SH, when I am craving a reasonably priced pasta meal, that is quick and efficient. I could not obtain the same amount of food at Olive Garden, or another chain place, at the same price.

First time here so definitely wasnt sure what to expect. We were told its a mix of Japanese and Italian noodles, different so was intrigued.
Tried the seafood with tomato cream sauce and have to admit it was delicious! My son had the Italian and ham noodles. The menu said tomato ketchup sauce (never seen that before) and let me warn you the sauce DEFINTELY tastes like ketchup. So if your not a ketchup lover might want to stay away from this dish. He wasn’t too fond of it so we ordered a regular spaghetti with spicy meat sauce. Wasn’t too spicy so he ate it all up.
The service was adequate, however they weren’t very busy. Not sure if I would go back but it was an experience.

First time here today. They have a lot of Japanese style pasta. We ordered hamburg steak & spaghetti combo and clam with cream sauce spaghetti.
I never have that kind of cream sauce.
It was so so so yammy!!! soy sauce base with light cream sauce.

Food: 4.5
Ambiance: 4.5
Service: 4.5
Value: 4.5
Overall Rating: 4.5
This hidden gem of a place has apparently been here for over 20 years I am told. It seems to be a place off the radar by foodies but after eating here, I think it deserves a little more attention.
I came for dinner with a friend one night and after perusing the menu, decided they had a lot of really great plates at what I thought were quite reasonable prices.
I finally decided on the Combo A. which consisted of a Hamburg Steak, spaghetti with meat sauce and a salad. I was given a choice between the meat sauce, a marinara sauce or a Japanese roe. I think I will select the roe the next time just to try since my friend selected that and it looked quite good.
Combo A.
The hamburg steak which is really a meatloaf was juicy and was seasoned nicely. The spaghetti was tasty too with the meat sauce being mildly tart just the way I like it. The combo also included a side bowl of white rice and a bowl of potato cream soup. The soup was flavorful and delicious.
Although Spoon House seems to be the popular destination for this type of fare and is actually not far from this restaurant. if you are wanting to try something different yet similar to the fare served at Spoon House, give Akane Chaya a little love and try her out. I for one would come back here again because the food is good and the service was friendly and attentive. I look forward to trying some of the other menu items in the future.