Sakae

The place looks closed down. That sucks.

Amazing!!! Their happy is pretty good if you’re trying to eat sushi on a budget and still not trying to compromise your palate. I sat down with my cousin and friends based on the Unilocal bookmarked I had book marked a while back, and I have been back several times because of their happy hour. But it’s the fresh fresh did I mention fresh sushi that they have to get me coming back for more.
Sakae is owned by Koreans, and from what they had educated me on. Koreans love moving seafood, like fresh sea urchin which they have, but you have to call to see if they are going to get their shipment that day, and there flounder that you have to buy per fish so they would gut, cut and sashimi for you. I am still not ballsy enough to go for the moving octopus in my mouth, but my friend did on a bet that he would not throw up. He didn’t but mentioned that it felt like pop rocks because it just moves around and you can’t help it. hahahahah whatever, I am still scared to try it out, and Sakae isn’t my go to place for sushi, but it definitely is a great place I go to if I am going the aurora la fitness. So, if you are looking for an alternative sushi place and don’t want to venture down to Seattle, go to Sakae. They have awesome specials so take advantage of them!

Great Sushi and great prices.

Sakae is a top notch sushi place. I came in here after a couple of hours in a pool and we were starving. I ordered the baked green mussels, which were really tasty and had a lot of seafood in them. We also ordered agedashi tofu which the table shared, I really enjoyed this dish.
We followed that up with Alaskan rolls, spicy tuna (not very spicy…) some baked roll which I didn’t eat. I felt the baked green mussels and another roll laden with sauce wouldn’t be to appealing. (I did come back the next day for lunch and grab the simba roll, which has cheese baked on top, delish).
I also ordered a couple pieces of nigiri but I don’t recall exactly all I ate.
The tea was excellent, and I liked the iced Cinnamon apple tea at the end.
Prices were not unreasonable and the selection was great.
Will be back, hopefully this week…

Friendly service and delicious fresh food!
My friend and I came here, video cameras ready to capture me eating a live octopus for youtube. But to our disappointment, live octopus is a seasonal item which doesn’t start until November (or else the octopus don’t live long and are poor quality – according to the sushi chef). In the breezeway there are tanks of live shrimp and flounder. We were the only people in the restaurant at 7pm on a Wednesday (though a few more couples sauntered in) and we sat at the bar.
My friend’s experience with sushi consisted of a roll from Fred Myers so I ordered us a smoke king salmon sushi, a salmon and avocado roll ($ 6), and a Seahawks roll for $ 14 (shrimp tempura with a creamy scallop and jalapeño sauce topping). I ordered the «live shrimp» (but it wasn’t actually alive). We watched the sushi chef head out to the breezeway to retrieve our live shrimp, and then kill them and lay them over rice.
Dinner started with complimentary small bowl of edamame, large bowl of miso soup, and small bowl of cold seaweed soup thing.
My friend loved everything we ordered, but I’m not a big fan of creamy sauce in general. LOVED the smoked salmon (big serving size) and raw shrimp. The server and sushi chef were very friendly and I asked about how to improve my own roll making skills.
After dinner we received a free bowl of cold cinnamon tea that was AWESOME!
Will definitely return in November for the live octopus!

I don’t know much about sushi, but I thought this place was great. It was a little more than I thought we’d pay for, but all the food was very fresh and tasty. The bill for four people was $ 150 and we were totally stuffed (they even tossed in some free Mochi!)
My only complain is that the tea wasn’t really hot. More luke warm, so it was kind of cold after a couple of minutes.

The place is not real appealing from the outside but as soon as you opne the front door and see the large tanks of lve sea creatures you hav an immediate comfort.
They start you off with small appetizers and miso soup on the house. The Sashimi was fresh and priced right. They have a yummy selction of Maki rolls, some of them made especially for local sports fans (Seahawks, Mariner and ye Sonics rolls).
When the check was left on the table it was accompanied by a delicious after dinner tea!

I still LOVE this place!!!

Nice people, great service, large sake choices and sashimi choices.
Me– Ton Katsu– with miso/(phở like) soup, and Bento box!
Him– Sashimi plate b or C & Kirin Beer. He says «good» not great but good! So I write it.
Finished the meal with a sweet little cider cold tea!
Nice spot… I think this place use to be a Chinese restaurant before… décor looks like its still a work in progress… in the back a lounge that is just the right mix of dark/​and mysterious.
Had better sushi otherplaces… but not better service! Nice time!

[ 3.5 stars — i rounded up though ]
We got their sushi dinner combination. As in serves 5 people for $ 120. Now, my friend ordered it and I was a little hesitant. I couldn’t imagine 68 pieces of sushi costing $ 120.
…
I was wrong.
It doesn’t _​just_​come with sushi. Don’t be fooled. We started off with a pumpkin stew, had some small plates (oshinko, apple salad, some squid thing), chicken yakitori, tempura appetizer (with like five pieces of shrimp), grilled saba shio, Korean seafood pancake (I loved the chili dipping sauce it came with, its the best I’ve ever tried so far) and then a hugeass plate of sushi. Then we got this steamed flounder that was delicious, that Korean pepper roll that another Unilocaler mentioned and spicy flounder stew.
Holy shit. It was so much food.
OH OH OH!!!
AND WE GOT THE LIVE OCTOPUS!!! It moves around and its absolutely crazy!
I wasn’t blown away by the sushi itself, I didn’t think that the fish was really that good (+ for variety though) but the service and the amount of food gives it extra props.

Probably the best Japanese restaurant in the North End in terms of value.
There are three qualities to sushi in the world: crap, good and mind-​blowing. Bada Sushi is «good», like most Japanese restaurants. You eat it, you like it, but you don’t run up to the sushi chef and kiss him all over.
They have a moderately diverse menu. Their prices are surprisingly low, which is probably reflected in their food somewhat. The atmosphere is a little cafeteria-​esque.
The service! They are the nicest bunch of Asians I’ve ever met — and I’m Asian, so that’s saying something. The service is so good it’s almost embarrassing.
They even gave me a free appetizer. How cool is that? I’ll tell you how cool it is – it’s pretty cool.
I’m pretty sure it’s owned and run by Koreans, but sadly I couldn’t find any Korean dishes on the menu. But they do have assorted Korean kimchis if you ask for it and they’re free. Actually, I think they give a lot of little food items for free (which is typical to Korean restaurants): miso soup, some sort of after-​dinner apple cider drink, etc.

Being here for lunch today, I got to try a whole new array of sushi and even explored their lunch specials. between Noon and 2:30pm, Bada offers $ 1 sushi rolls as well as a lunch special menu. With the lunch specials, you pay $ 6.95 for: Salad, 4 pc. California roll, orange slice, steamed rice, some sort of quiche like thing and an entrée with choices ranging from veggie tempura to pork katsu and four other options.
Bravely, I decided to try the tuna, crab stick and salmon sushi. I’ve only ever had rolls so this was very adventurous for me. Needless to say, I was very happy with my choices all but for the crab stick which was imitation crab. The tuna was actually gave a bit of a struggle coming apart but the salmon sushi was perfect and melted in my mouth. Aside from the 3 rolls, I also decided to get the Pork Katsu from the lunch special menu. Another high five to self. The Katsu was delicious, had a great tender meets crunchy type texture and flavor was sweet with a hint of brown sugar or something sweet. It went well with the salad, which also had a sweet dressing. The Cali rolls were on par as well but I find it hard to run into a bad California roll.
Our meal was jump started with a healthy bowl of miso soup and ended with a cold and complimentary ginger tea. Very delicious array and assortment with lots to choose from.

R text: What are you doing? I need food and a break from homework.
D text: yes, but do you want sushi?
R text: Meh, i was thinking diner, is it cheap? I don’t wanna go broke here.
(thinking to myself, I love sushi, and i’m hungry… should I take out a loan?)
R text: Do they have tempura and other stuff too?
D text: IDK
R text: I’m on my way over
Hooray for D wanting sushi today and knowing about Bada.
I haven’t had sushi (other than a cheap what not from the grocery store late at night, which I hardly think counts) in a long while, and I’m SOO glad we went here.
Having an exSO who could make sushi means I haven’t been to a sushi restaraunt in ages, either. I even avoided them for awhile after one in Factoria put me into labor. But I digress.
I can’t, and won’t, speak to it’s «authenticity» or it being «like» or «unlike» anywhere else I’ve been. Mainly because I think that line of thinking is, well, shitty.
If it is good tasting, well priced, or a good experience what do I care if it’s «just like» some other damn place or not?
Perusing the regular menu first, they have a very wide variety of menu options. The prices seem high, but for what you are getting with that order (in number of pieces, etc) it’s not really that bad.
They also have a nice variety of beer, sake and plum wines available. I didn’t notice if they have a ‘full bar’ option of drinks though.
The place was empty when we arrived, although several small groups were sauntering in as we left. It looks newly (within the last year or two) remodeled and was clean.
Service was a bit sketch at first. Our waitress was unable to answer several questions we had. She simply didn’t understand what we were saying. We muddled through what we didn’t know and her unintelligble answers and ended up ordering from the lunch special menu.
What a steal that deal is. $ 6.95 for the Teriyaki, Tempura or Katsu boxes, a small list of $ 2 items (gyoza, sushi roll of the day, etc) and a nice long list of sushi and sashimi for $ 1 roll special.
Needing to stay on my budget and not feeling ‘meaty’, I went for the Vegetable Tempura box and one Unagi.
OH MY GOD that Unagi was SOOOO good.
The miso soup and the complimentary cold dessert tea at the end were FANTASTIC. I even finished D’s soup and her tea.
Tried some of D’s Pork Katsu and it was also wonderful.
I really enjoyed everything I had, and left ridiculously satisfied for $ 10.
Definitely will return here and experience more.

The bar remodeling is complete. We were able to reserve it for a birthday party. The 2 for 1 roll special they have going on is a great deal. The sushi was well presented and good. There’s a large selection of specialty rolls. I had the Dynamite and Crunch roll and would recommend both.

Nummy nummy nummy in my tummy tummy tummy! This snushi was super FRESH and delish. I was kinda worried at first because my dinner date and I were pretty much the only people in the restaurant which is breaking the first rule of a good Unilocal place: if there’s a line out the door, it’s worth the wait. But ho-​lee-​shizz I’m glad we didn’t have to wait at all for some mind blowing deliciousness. After ordering, we saw the chef roll to the fish tanks at the entrance to the restaurant with a net, and then a few minutes later. .. Viola‘! A beautiful rainbow roll (well, two actually. .. I’ll get to that in a sec) is splayed out in front of our quivering mouths and tongues.
So, this month, they’re having BUY ONE GET ONE FREE sushi. Umm, yes please! But it’s buy one sushi, get an extra sushi roll (or sashimi) for free — double the pleasure, double the fun! We ordered a usual amount of food, thinking that half of it would be the «free» part, but instead, we got twice the amount of food we ordered for the same price. Hopefully that doesn’t sound as confooosing as I think it does. .. So to avoid ordering way too much food, just order ½ as much as you usually do…
While the sushi was effing DEEELISH, it does get a –1 star cuz the service can be kinda spotty and wonky ;) Anyhoo, give it a try! it’s super worth it!

So… as the first Korean to review this place, I should point out that Bada Sushi & Seafood is not a Sushi restaurant… well it is and it isn’t. The term is «Hoe» or raw fish in Korean or Sashimi in Japanese if you prefer. Here is the handy Wiki article concerning Hoe (Pronounced «hwe»)
.
The experience itself is very different from your typical Japanese sushi restaurant. We ordered the whole halibut at market price ($ 140). I know it’s kind of steep, but stay with me now. The first round of food that is served when eating «hwe» is called… I forgot what its called, but here’s the list of things I can remember.
First — Miso Soup (also they omitted the moist steamed towels… very traditional and when asked for they sheepishly said most people don’t ask for it so they stopped)
Second — whole deep fried flounder with a sweet sauce, broiled shrimps, seasoned and sauted corn, two types of seaweed salad, Steamed egg loaf, seared tuna with bonito, flounder sashimi, mini conch snails, and about 15 other snacks. (Usually in Korea there are 3 times as many starter snacks on longer tables and things get stacked up on each other).
Main — The Halibut itself presented head on and still moving I might add… with the Hwe or Sashimi displayed over a bed of julienned daikon served with chokochujang which is korean chili paste mixed with vinegar and sugar, wasabi and soy sauce, or lastly with lettuce and korean miso.
Lastly — They take about ¼ of the fish which wasn’t sliced up for sashimi/​hwe and quickly put it into a spicy fish soup called mae-​woon tang served with rice and the regular assortment of Korean side dishes.
Three of us ate and we felt like we were going to explode afterwards, but the meal could have easily fed 5 to nice and comfortable levels.
So although it’s not sushi, it is something else which has its own traditions and should be experienced with new eyes and open minds. If you are tired of the same old Sushi experience, try order the whole fish and be ready to eat. It’s not like Japanese food where you’re hungry an hour later either.
My only gripe about the joint is that it’s pretty expensive when compared to what you can get in LA or Korea. I guess when you’re the only place in town that does Hwe, you can charge a bit more. Also I felt that the spicy seafood soup is better at Akasaka in Federal Way. I’d write more, but I need to get back to work. They also have shabu shabu, sushi, and a lot of Korean dishes. A marked improvement from the old Chinese Place that used to be there.

I’m a sucker for *new* places. Especially new SUSHI places. I’ve noticed a few of these Korean establishments which also serve sushi. At first, I was suspect of these combo restaurants, but the more I tried, the more I relaxed any preconceived notions that good sushi must come from a bonafide, classically trained, Japanese sushi chef.
The restaurant is easy to spot on Aurora Ave (across from the Brown Bear Car Wash). It’s a big blue building with ample parking around the building. Inside, you walk past numerous tanks of fresh seafood. I always get a little uncomfortable when I see my potential dinner options on display. Though, I will say the tanks were very clean. The restaurant itself is brightly lit inside with a sushi bar, a separate eating area for families and a lounge area (which I presume you need to be 21-​and-​over to be seated here). The lounge area had tables and booth seating areas and a bar with two big screen TVs overhead to watch your favorite sports teams.
The menus are both in Korean and English with the main focus on seafood items and a separate menu for sushi items. I came here for sushi so that’s what I ordered. I was pleasantly surprised when the server presented a salad and bowl of miso soup. She later arrived with a bowl of edamame. Nice, since I was starving. The sushi was good and nicely prepared. I especially liked the deep-​fried oyster/​avocado roll with slices of lemon. The dynamite roll was good if not gooey and a bit messy. Uni uzura was also fresh. There was also a nice selection of beers, sake and other spirits.

We were trying to go to the new sushi place on Aurora north of 145^th (whose name I don’t know, starts with an «M» maybe?) but they had NO parking (well, like five spaces and they were full, leaving… I’ll say it again, NO parking), so there we were toodling up Aurora on a Friday night searching for dinner.
Now I have to admit that I was turned off by the name Bada Sushi which reeked of Sopranos association (did the Sopranos ever eat sushi?), but Chris, ever the optimist, suggested that maybe Bada actually meant something in Korean. I still don’t know.
I’m a total food scaredy cat and don’t eat anything raw, so I was a little frightened by the completely foreign menu and stuck with the sushi rolls as was my original plan. I was very curious to see what everybody else was eating though. My, aren’t they adventurous! Mostly they were Asian so they knew what they were doing, or so I would imagine.
We started with edamame, served hot and some of the best I’ve ever had, and followed with Miso soup, also good. Between the two of us we had four rolls — Crunchy roll (tempura shrimp with asparagus), California roll (my standard by which I can really judge a sushi place), the Katrina roll (Spicy tempura crawdad on a veggie roll of more asparagus, avocado and cucumber), and the Mariners roll (a shrimp tempura roll with salmon on top and spicy sauce).
I worry a little about a place that has both a Katrina roll and a ⁹⁄₁₁ roll. Like, why? I don’t really know what they’re going for, but I have to say that the Katrina roll was AWESOME. The spicy sauce was SPICY! They could rename it the «Gum on my shoe» roll, and I would order it again.
We had the two spicy rolls second (the food did take a while but the server came over to explain to us why, blah blah. I assured her we were fine. We’d had miso and edamame, and I was halfway to full right there!), and by then, not only were we full, but the spicy sauce had turned our faces red and both of us had snuffy noses. WTF? Could you have gotten the plate away from us? No way!
With one Kirin and a hot tea, our total before tip was $ 48 bucks. We were stuffed. My only regret is that I’m such a chicken when it comes to venturing out in the world of other foods. Well, I wasn’t about to go near the LIVE Sea Squirt Sashimi! There was a ton of LIVE sashimi, and you couldn’t pay me to be in the room for that, but if that’s your thing this is the place.
But you’d think I could handle a nice seafood stew!

After centuries of evolution, one would think that man has developed the common sense to be particularly mindful of weakness of the flesh, to be wary of the desire for what his neighbor possesses. One would also think that the process of natural selection has bred in him the ability to think through the consequences of his actions before hastily proceeding down a path that has no return.
And so it is with my tale of woe with Bada Sushi and Seafood, a new Korean restaurant that also serves Japanese food (sushi in particular, as the name indicates). It is thus that we walked in with sushi on the mind last night. But the minute I spied the massive, bubbling, steaming, seafood jeongol (stew) on our neighbor’s table, undeniable Stew-​Lust kicked in. And the minute Y saw me ogling the jeongol, she knew that there was nothing that could be done to change our fate.
And so the stew (Bada spells it as «jung gol») was duly ordered.
What arrived was truly a magnificent sight to behold. A good 18 inches across, the pan (about 2″ deep, with straight sides) proudly flaunted a myriad of fresh delicacies all simmering in a deep rich, red, broth. Crab, prawns, shrimp, mussels, clams and fish, including some much-​prized collar pieces. There was also the requisite sliced daikon, onions and tofu. The pice de rsistance was a freshly-​harvested octopus, fished out mere minutes before from one of the live seafood tanks that line the wall along the entrance.
Simmer, simmer, stew, stew. After several minutes, it was time to dive in!
This is when the realization and dread set in. It is the nature of eating fresh seafood that handwork is involved. Lots and lots of peeling, digging, scraping, squeezing. Did I mention I dislike peeling seafood? Especially halved crab and whole (head-​on) shrimp. Which is somewhat odd and may result in the involuntary surrender of my Asian membership card. All through dinner (which I have to admit was rich and tasty), I cussed at and kicked myself. Silently, of course, because it was my hare-​brained idea to stray from our plan.
The bright side to this woeful tale is that I’m sitting here writing about it. Not because it’s cathartic, but because it shows that I’m (hopefully) learning from my mistakes. So that my very unique genes have some semblance of hope. Just like the 14 species of Very Specialized Finches and the Slow, Slothful, Swimming Iguanas on Darwin’s Galapagos Islands.

Bada Sushi replaced the Mandarin Palace, a good Chinese restaurant that I didn’t like to see go. However Japanese is my favorite cuisine so I was anxious to check it out (it’s actually a combination of Japanese and Korean). Now I’m not sure how to go about rating it fairly. I gave it 4 stars as the average of my 3 star experience plus the 5 star potential it seems to have.
I think that people who like to sit at the sushi bar and experience a wide variety of very fresh fish would love it. However my usual thing is to sit at a table and order sashimi, a bowl of rice and a beer. So I got a table and dove into the menu.
The prices on the first page will take your breath away — $ 30 to $ 200 for a meal (the latter being the ultra deluxe sashimi) and up to $ 1,300 for a party. But keep turning pages and you come to dinners for $ 11 & up.
Dinner started with 7 little dishes of appetizers and a cup of miso soup. The main dish was Tuna Rice Bow (bowl) consisting of tuna sashimi and a variety of sliced vegetables on top of rice and salad, all topped with a raw quail egg. The bowl was the exact size and shape of a man’s fedora from the ‘50s complete with brim.
The server said the traditional way of eating it was to stir it all up together so I did but wished I hadn’t. The hot rice made it all kind of lukewarm and the raw egg, which I wasn’t sure I wanted, kind of coated everything. Also one of the things I like about most Japanese food is the way it’s arranged separately on a broad flat plate… this was more like eating a salad-​based stew out of Humphrey Bogart’s hat.
It was really not a bad first experience, just unexpected and it would have been better if I had studied the menu a little longer. It’s definitely different from the Japanese restaurants I’m used to. But I will go back, probably sit at the sushi bar next time.