Yakitori Taisho

Pretty good. Would be willing to come back and try the deep fried stuff. Went with a friend and had their «orange cocktail» (which was basically just orange juice and soju for $ 7 – not worth it). Also tried their skewers of meatball, scallops, chicken skin, vein, beef, and chicken. Overall it was standard.

This little place in Clairemont is AMAZING. I came here on a late dinner and they they still served us well. When I say that this place is tiny, it is TINY. It can fit at most… about 20 people. Most of the restaurant is the prep area and grill. It is a great authentic experience. Service is excellent and the food doesn’t take long at all.
Chicken Skin — limited order — AMAZING. I never had grilled chicken skin like this before. I wish it wasn’t limited otherwise I’d order so many!
Chicken Vein — limited order– it’s a little weird but really tasty grilled. I think it is the marinade or something.
Chicken Gizzards — good if you like gizzards. It is small but very tender and expertly grilled.
Pork Belly — this is very tasty. It is grilled in different grades on the skewer. The edges are really crispy and more tender as you reach the middle.
Quail Egg — grilled quail egg is excellent. It is marinated a bit and the yolk is soft.

Definitely my favorite yakitori place is San Diego! We made a reservation for Friday evening, and were seated right away. The place is really small and intimate, so I would suggest making reservations if you want to come on weekends!
They have a good variety of yakitoris, and be sure to check the black board on the wall for their specials to not miss out on more good stuff! Besides the yakitoris, they also have a wide selection of appetizers. The Takowasa was yummy, it goes really well with beer. The Calamari was surprisingly juicy for a fried dish, remember to squeeze some lemon juice on it!
My favorite skewers are:
Chicken Vein — sounds weird, but it’s super juicy and chewy. They marinated it really well!
Chicken Skin — crunchy and oily. Delicious!
Chicken Heart — I’m a big fan of chicken hearts, and I can eat 10 of this. They cooked it to perfection where it had the right chewiness.
Squid Legs — fresh and crunchy!
Quail Eggs — I was not expecting runny yolk, that just made it 100x better!
Honestly all the other things on the menu was really good too. I would suggest to try EVERYTHING that sounds good or interesting to you! Also yakitori is definitely drinking food, so do yourself a favor and order a couple bottles of sake or beer. Cheers!

Quality, price, and atmoshphere = 5 stars!
The place is extremely quaint and intimate, only seating 15 people maximum. Therefore, seating may be extremely difficult especially since the grill master takes his time to ensure each yakitori skewer is grilled to perfection. If you plan on coming here with groups of 4 or more, you can easily expect to wait about an hour so I definitely recommend going to one of its other locations as it is better suited for larger groups.
Having already been to Yakyudori and Hinotez, I was expecting the same kind of service and quality, but this place seems to deliver the highest quality of yakitori. They do serve couple appetizers and fried options, but their main focus is yakitori (sorry, no ramen!). I ordered the negima (chicken breast with green onions), pork belly, chicken breast with wasabi, chicken gizzard, and fried chicken. They were all perfectly seasoned and tender, but my personal favorites were the chicken gizzard and the fried chicken. I know they specialize mainly in yakitori, but that fried chicken is amazingly crunchy on the outside, and oh so juicy on the inside. I highly recommend it!
Also, their Sapporo draft seemed to taste like a nitro pour which made the beer taste creamy and smooth. Wow! Paired with that fried chicken, the nitro Sapporo was the perfect complement.
Overall, if you’re looking for that perfect yakitori experience in San Diego, look no further because this place is it!

I love this Japanese restaurant! When I walk in I feel like I’m in a little alley in Japan. My boyfriend introduced this place to because he knows I love any again food! Ok so, I must say, the canned green tea is soooo good here. Yes canned lol but the best I’ve had. The wings here are also very good. Crispy just how I like them. My boyfriend got the cream soda, it was very good also. 1 thing I didn’t like were the mochi balls. It tastes like chocolate and ground sesame seeds. Definitely an acquired taste. Overall I enjoyed my experience here.

This is good as yakitori is going to get in SD. Try to come here earlier on weekend nights as this is a rather intimate joint, and seating is very limited. Come here as a couple or maybe bring your parents. If you come here with more than 4 people then you are looking for a bad time and you deserve it.
The karaage is pretty good but far from the best, but really, you came here for meat on a stick. Basically EVERYTHING HERE that passes over that little binchotan grill is delicious as hell, and it’s a bit difficult for me to pinpoint exactly which items are the best as I’ve been here tons of times. Chicken gizzard, heart, tsukune, and beef tongue are always a must. The squid is probably one of the weaker items, but I forgive them. If it’s available as a special, be sure to get the tonkatsu skewer. The breading is crunchy as hell and the pork is stacked in little bite sized cubes on the skewer. Amazing. Chicken skin is really good too, but it’s more skin-​like than crispy, so maybe avoid it if you aren’t big on eating skin?
Service here is a little bit slow, but definitely worth it. There’s only one guy working the grill so be patient. They’re very good at timing your orders and avoid overloading you with ALL THE FOOD AT ONCE like a lot of other places.

Bow down to Yakitori Taisho! I felt like I’m in Japan. taste so good I dont know how to describe it!
I’ve been to Yakyudori&Hinotez but I found out that ONLY Nabe san (Yakyudori&Hinotez owner) and Taka (Taisho)were well trained in Japan and everybody else were just learn how to grill in U. S so thats why taste different. why I said this because I used live in Japan for years so I know the differences between professional and amateur.
I came back to Taisho when Taka was off on Thursday and it was a different chef grilling Yakitori and it wasn’t taste
disapointed.
P. S.I warn everybody not to go on Thursday!!!

Arrived 10 minutes before opening and was second on the sign-​in sheet. 5 minutes later, there were 6 parties on the sign-​in sheet. Thats pretty impressive if you ask me. This place has limited seating and a limited menu, however, the service, quality of ingredients, and flavor are superb! Hands down, my date and I considered this the best Yakitori spot we’ve had in a long time. After being seated, we were handed two pieces of paper to order. We basically ordered everything on the menu, twice.
My favorites:
Chicken — vein, skin, gizzards, wings, meatballs
Pork — belly with shiso leaf, neck, bacon wrapped asparagus
Seafood — scallops (ordered 8)
Vegetables — shitake mushrooms, trumpet mushrooms
Egg — quail egg (order this!)
I would have loved a second round of chicken vein, skin, and wings, but unfortunately those are limited. Also, they ran out of quail egg surprisingly fast! Get multiple skewers of this, its melt in your mouth goodness. The yolk stays runny, its awesome.
We stayed a total of 1.5hrs and by that time, the restaurant had already run out of chicken skin, vein, and quail egg, so go early if you can. We’ll definitely be back!

Thank you Yakitori Taisho for reminding me why I started to love Unilocal in the first place!
This is a true hidden gem inside of a nondescript strip mall tucked away in the corner. There is no neon signs, just a single banner «Taisho». The place is tiny! about 8 seats at the bar and two tables that fit 3 and 4 people. One server, one chef, and one sous chef.
Once you walk in, you’ll notice the charcoal grill front and center, yet no smoke in the atmosphere. I’ve never been to Japan but I felt as if I was there. Everything was so simple, clean and cozy.
We ordered everything on their grill menu! I found it interesting that the prices listed included 1 skewer but there is a min of 2 skewers per order.
From the chicken: heart, liver, vein, wing, skin
From the pork: pork with shiso and plum shiso paste
From the grill: Japanese smoked sausage, quail egg, fried whole garlic bulb, squid legs
Let me just say that I’m not usually a fan of yakitori but THIS IS THE JUICIEST, BEST yakitori I have ever had. Clearly all the other places are doing it wrong. I get it now. I crave it now.
Cheat Sheet:
1. Order Sake because it’s really reasonably priced
2. Order everything because they know their craft
3. Come during off hours (they’re opened late) because this place gets packed!

5 stars: great service, great food, thanks to the chef’s love for his grill!
I’m so deep in love with Taisho!!!
The flavor of the charcoal grill is stunning and spectacular here!
This is a place where you savor on skewers, so the food doesn’t all come at once.
The ventilation is great here, you don’t walk out and smell like you just went to a BBQ.
skin/​vein is now limited to 1 skewer per person due to limited quantities. They now give you paper menus to write down your own orders. App and the skewer menus.
I had both and it was delicious! This time, the Skin was much better than I had last 2 times before. It was more crispy, Thank you Chef!!! Vein is also flavorful.
The gizzards, hearts were delicious. Beef tongue was also very tender. Pork with shiso/​plum is tender. Their wings (grilled) is super delicious. Scallops were so juicy. Quail eggs dipped in yaki sauce has a runny center and just so good.
We finished off with:
takowasa is better this time, less slimy.
Chazuke was unexpectedly flavorful.
Their chicken and meatball rice bowl has so much flavor! The chicken/​meatball I think were done from the grill so the rice soaked up all that flavor and it was just heavenly.

The food here is amazing! It’s very very small, so you have to be lucky or wait for a seat. But I assure you it is worth it. I think the yakitori chef must have magical powers! My favorite items are the chicken meatballs and the pork Shisho w/​plum sauce SO GOOD! They have a selection of drinks and daily specials. We come here often. Great service too!

DH was so excited to take me here one time for dinner. I didn’t realize that there’s a yakitori place in this shopping center. The place is so tiny, it only seats 10 – 12 people at a time. We got there late at night and we still had to wait for a table to open up. The waitress was really friendly and so was the chef.
We decided to be adventurous and ordered several sticks to try. Tako wasabi, chicken heart, chicken wings, scallop w/​roe, pork belly w/​plum sauce, baby octopus, chicken skin, eggplant, beef tongue, smelt w/​eggs, stingray fins, gizzard, liver, vein.
It was a really good experience all in all. They have good ventilation system so you don’t end up smelling like smoke after. It was definitely a treat to experience such an authentic yakitori joint. I would love to come back next time the craving hits :)

Not good for groups as this place is really small
Menu: Very limited choices. Besides yakitori, they have small plates of deep fried stuff, as for carbs, they have two choices for small rice bowls: chicken and green tea. Wish they had noodles or soup and stews on the menu
The quality of yakitori is pretty good. I recommend the beef and pork belly with shiso. Tsukune chicken meat ball was okay, didn’t like the mushroom, they gave us odds and ends random pieces. I liked the rice bowl with chicken, chicken rice and sauce went well together.
Be ready to pay $ 50, $ 60 per person if you don’t want to walk out hungry.

Best yakitori I’ve tried in San Diego so far. Before I discovered this hidden gem, Yokohama Yakitori Koubou was my favorite. It really just tears me apart to even try to compare these two places because they’re both so good! In terms of just Yakitori, I think this place is just only a tiny bit better. But the things that Yokohama Yakitori Koubou champs over this place is their entrees and beef tongue, both of which Yakitori Taisho doesn’t have.
This place is really small and cozy, good for just a couple of friends hanging out. I came here with two other friends on a Friday night. We decided to order two of any yakitori so we could try a lot of different stuff. Only for the Butashiso (Pork Belly w/​Shiso) we ordered one for each person because pork belly is usually just bomb. So the things we shared were chicken vein, liver, neck, octopus, scallop, and quail eggs. Everything was amazingly delicious, with butashiso receiving first place and everything else except the octopus close second. The octopus was a little blend and was the only dish that wasn’t outstanding. The yakitori chefs here really know their way on the grill. Everything is cooked perfectly, with the right level of crisp on the outside and right level of tenderness on the inside. In addition, everything is seasoned well. Their BBQ sauce on each different dish are to die for!
They pretty much only serve yakitori so if you’re looking to fill your empty stomach, this probably isn’t the best place for it. However, when we’re talking about yakitori, it’s all about quality over quantity! Lastly, this place is not pricey at all for what it is! The three of us only have to pay $ 20 for all that and we each got a beer or cocktail. Highly recommend!

The best Japanese BBQ in San Diego in my opinion.
Baby scallops are so delicious! I reordered it again after the first try! Nothing fail that day!
Book ahead of time. The place is small, and you will probably need to wait if you didn’t make reservation. Good for small group! 1 – 4 people are the best size! (2 people is the best size!)

Located in a random plaza… this place keeps it intimate!
Things I ordered:
Butashiso (Pork Belly w/​Shiso): yum
Baby Scallops: yum
Beef: yum
Octopus: yum
Sausage: yum
Takoyaki: yum
Takowasabi: yum
I wasn’t even that hungry but everything tasted so good that I just had to order a lot. I was sad they were out of chicken heart because that’s one of my favorites too. I’ll make sure to order it next time I come back.
Service is good. Food can take a bit longer to come out but wait patiently — it’s worth it.
Don’t come here expecting weird rolls. This place keeps it simple but they do a good job.
Also just to emphasize: DO NOT come here with a big group.
We came with around 5 people and we had to cram in the corner and it wasn’t the most comfortable experience.

I’ve never been to Japan so I can’t comment on the authenticity of this place, but I can definitely say that this place serves really good yakitori! During my last visit, I had the butashiso, which is pork belly with a shiso leaf sauce. This was definitely my favorite of the night. Other items we tried were the chicken hearts, thigh, and smelt. The seasoning complemented the chicken hearts and thigh meat extremely well.
I was not a big fan of the smelt, but my eating partner in crime and I just wanted to try it. The smelt composed mainly of eggs, or at least what I believed to be eggs and I didn’t really enjoy it.
I hope for the best for this little restaurant. It is small and definitely not meant for large parties. It could be a place for a cute little date night though.

Yakitori Taisho is a hidden gem in the Clairemont neighborhood of San Diego. The place is small and only with a few seats, so be prepared to wait in line if there are no available seats.
My significant other who has been to Japan says the food here is legitimate. I’ll take it! Between the two of us, I think we ordered everything off the menu. Our favorites were the roasted peppers, scallop wrapped with bacon, and asparagus wrapped with bacon.
YUM! (I might regret writing a review of this place at 5 stars… but it should be shared).
Tip 1: This is very traditional Japanese, so you’ll need to be quiet and respectful.
Tip 2: No large parties (4 persons are the maximum; 2 persons are ideal).
ENJOY!

A wonderful little yakitori place. Really never thought such a gem of a place would be located in a random little strip mall like this. Be warned though, this place is TINY. There are maybe 8 spots at the bar and two tables that fit four each and that’s getting crowded. So get there early, keep the group small and intimate.
As far as the yakitori goes the grilled stuff is top notch. It has the sweet smoky taste and its just so good. Also had chicken vein which I had never tried before. Delicate and tasty. The fried stuff is good but I think it is the grilled stuff that get this place the top rating.
Service is good and friendly for the size of the place. Come here for a small intimate date, have some drinks and walk out thoroughly satisfied.

You know the place is going to be good when you can smell that signature charcoal smokiness from 100ft away.
This place is tiny (seats 16), and they don’t have a waiting list so just check in with the waitress when you arrive.
The food here is excellent, much better than all the other yakitori locations in this family (Yakyudori. Hinotez). Keep in mind however that they only do appetizer dishes and yakitori. No ramen or other dishes you would find elsewhere.
Highly Recommend:
Negima
Heart
Liver
Pork Belly w/​Shiso
Do not come with a large group. Max party size to come here with is 4, otherwise there really is now way to seat more than that.
If I ever have a craving for yakitori, this is the first place I will be hitting up!