Wait time is 1 hour -1:30mins during lunch or dinner. They raised the price and it's not like you get extra stuff. Owner has mental problem being psychotic fighting with the customer when customer complained that his food is too salty. Upon was salty and soba noodle was not fully cooked. I rather get a lunch box at a sushi restaurant with more variety of food than eating here.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 2
Service: 1
Keiko Y
Friendly staff! Great Soba :)
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Cynthia T
My boyfriend and I decided to give Tanakaya a try for dinner, arriving just 10 minutes after they opened. We waited for about an hour to be seated and an additional 10 minutes just to place our order. It appeared that the staff were more focused on cleaning tables than taking orders.When our food finally arrived after another hour of waiting, it was disappointing. The cold soba sampler was the best of the worst. The kashiwa soba was overly salty, and the kaarage soba was a major letdown. The chicken kaarage that came with it was dry, flavorless, and came without any sauce. Even the broth for the soba lacked flavor. We used a lot of pepper flakes, but even they lacked any kick.The service was friendly, but it was incredibly slow and somewhat neglectful. The ambience was boring, with plain decor and no background music to create any atmosphere.In the end, our experience at Tanakaya was underwhelming. It's hard to recommend this restaurant when the overall dining experience was ruined by long waits and bland, uninspiring dishes. We left feeling that our time and money could have been better spent elsewhere.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 2
Service: 2
Zachery Shapiro
Atmosphere was a tad bland, service was friendly but seem to be rather uninformed of their menu. Offered me a pork cutlet when I asked for a vegetarian option. The food quality seems rather good, but I, in the end, had plain noodles with soy sauce. So not great for me. I would highly advise any vegetarian/vegan to look elsewhere.Vegetarian options: There are almost none. When asking a waiter what was vegetarian was recommended the pork cutlet.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 2
Sarah Kim
I am wondering what happened to our food last week when I visited...we ordered cold noodle w tempera. I am a soba lover so I cook soba at home w hone made sauce, meaning I know soba...their cold soba was dry w no taste. I couldn't believe this was what i was waiting for 45 min in line. Shrimp Tempera was great but Noodle was worst! Good soba supposed to be tasty even w/o sauce. I couldn't even finish it w tasty sauce. Worst soba noodle.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 4
Sylvia K.
Soba and Katsu-don were great, but Tempura batter could be better. It was not the typical Japanese style with light , fluffy, and crunchy batter but rather thicker, heavy in flour, and harder.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Mixed Tempura
Alex Pham
Great soba. Nothing really quite like it nearby. Come early to avoid lines.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Kitsune Udon and Japanese Curry, Matcha Soba
Anthony Pineda
Absolutely delicious traditional Japanese food. My lawyer found this spot while looking around Google earth and thought we should give it a try. The food here is the closest to Japanese quality I've found in socal. Soba was top notch and so was the udon. The combination was well worth it and we found the staff to be excellent and helpful.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Jacelyn Chesen
Tried this place a few months ago. Be warned that there is usually wait times during dinner hour. Service was ok and food was decent. Tried the chicken soba noodle and it tasted alright.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 3
Jenny S
Tanakaya is a great Japanese restaurant located in Old Towne Tustin. It can fill up quickly and understandably you will probably want to check on the business hours and arrive a bit early if you want to be seated right away.Then again, I’ve been here when there was no wait time, so I think it depends on the day you come.The food is great, I have no problem finding nonmeat dishes. You can get cold noodles and hot noodles as well as various rice dishes. The appetizers are great as well.???The atmosphere is cozy but pleasant.It’s an easy place to hang out and enjoy a meal while drinking tea. They do serve beer as well, but I’ve not tried that.There are many things I still haven’t tried yet. Ah well, guess I’ll just have to come back. ?The wait staffs are very polite and have always done a great job to see that we are well taken care of.?
Noodle Portions are small as usual. After order taking very long to get the food. It was ok but unless you get tow dishes or portions, I'd say you would still be hungry.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 3
Recommended dishes: Matcha Soba
Robert
The place doesn't look like much inside and outside, but the food is good. Everything seems fresh. Come early as it can get busy.
Michael Kim
We enjoyed our food but it took probably 30-40 minutes to get us our food. It also took 5+ minutes to get us our check and another 5+ minutes to run our card. The place wasn't even full.Why was service so slow?The soba noodles were slightly undercooked. We loved the udon side that came with the tonkatsu lunch combo. Next time I will try their udon!
kevin xue
Food is great, soba is absolutely tasty. But couple things I want say that makes it not perfect.It’s quite slow, portion is small and also pricey. Soba and udon is around 17 ea. quality is good but considering the price, may not come again unless I’m super craving for soba or udon.
K Lee
One of my favorite place in town. Soba Udon KatzuDon Curry everything is so tasty. Specially shrimp tempura is so delicious and crunchy.
Wait time is 1 hour -1:30mins during lunch or dinner. They raised the price and it's not like you get extra stuff. Owner has mental problem being psychotic fighting with the customer when customer complained that his food is too salty. Upon was salty and soba noodle was not fully cooked. I rather get a lunch box at a sushi restaurant with more variety of food than eating here.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 2
Service: 1
Friendly staff! Great Soba :)
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
My boyfriend and I decided to give Tanakaya a try for dinner, arriving just 10 minutes after they opened. We waited for about an hour to be seated and an additional 10 minutes just to place our order. It appeared that the staff were more focused on cleaning tables than taking orders.When our food finally arrived after another hour of waiting, it was disappointing. The cold soba sampler was the best of the worst. The kashiwa soba was overly salty, and the kaarage soba was a major letdown. The chicken kaarage that came with it was dry, flavorless, and came without any sauce. Even the broth for the soba lacked flavor. We used a lot of pepper flakes, but even they lacked any kick.The service was friendly, but it was incredibly slow and somewhat neglectful. The ambience was boring, with plain decor and no background music to create any atmosphere.In the end, our experience at Tanakaya was underwhelming. It's hard to recommend this restaurant when the overall dining experience was ruined by long waits and bland, uninspiring dishes. We left feeling that our time and money could have been better spent elsewhere.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 2
Service: 2
Atmosphere was a tad bland, service was friendly but seem to be rather uninformed of their menu. Offered me a pork cutlet when I asked for a vegetarian option. The food quality seems rather good, but I, in the end, had plain noodles with soy sauce. So not great for me. I would highly advise any vegetarian/vegan to look elsewhere.Vegetarian options: There are almost none. When asking a waiter what was vegetarian was recommended the pork cutlet.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 2
I am wondering what happened to our food last week when I visited...we ordered cold noodle w tempera. I am a soba lover so I cook soba at home w hone made sauce, meaning I know soba...their cold soba was dry w no taste. I couldn't believe this was what i was waiting for 45 min in line. Shrimp Tempera was great but Noodle was worst! Good soba supposed to be tasty even w/o sauce. I couldn't even finish it w tasty sauce. Worst soba noodle.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 4
Soba and Katsu-don were great, but Tempura batter could be better. It was not the typical Japanese style with light , fluffy, and crunchy batter but rather thicker, heavy in flour, and harder.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Mixed Tempura
Great soba. Nothing really quite like it nearby. Come early to avoid lines.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Recommended dishes: Kitsune Udon and Japanese Curry, Matcha Soba
Absolutely delicious traditional Japanese food. My lawyer found this spot while looking around Google earth and thought we should give it a try. The food here is the closest to Japanese quality I've found in socal. Soba was top notch and so was the udon. The combination was well worth it and we found the staff to be excellent and helpful.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Tried this place a few months ago. Be warned that there is usually wait times during dinner hour. Service was ok and food was decent. Tried the chicken soba noodle and it tasted alright.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 3
Service: 3
Tanakaya is a great Japanese restaurant located in Old Towne Tustin. It can fill up quickly and understandably you will probably want to check on the business hours and arrive a bit early if you want to be seated right away.Then again, I’ve been here when there was no wait time, so I think it depends on the day you come.The food is great, I have no problem finding nonmeat dishes. You can get cold noodles and hot noodles as well as various rice dishes. The appetizers are great as well.???The atmosphere is cozy but pleasant.It’s an easy place to hang out and enjoy a meal while drinking tea. They do serve beer as well, but I’ve not tried that.There are many things I still haven’t tried yet. Ah well, guess I’ll just have to come back. ?The wait staffs are very polite and have always done a great job to see that we are well taken care of.?
Recommended dishes: Cold Tofu, Tonkatsu Pork Cutlet, Mixed Tempura, Chicken Kara
Restaurantji Recommends
Noodle Portions are small as usual. After order taking very long to get the food. It was ok but unless you get tow dishes or portions, I'd say you would still be hungry.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 4
Service: 3
Recommended dishes: Matcha Soba
The place doesn't look like much inside and outside, but the food is good. Everything seems fresh. Come early as it can get busy.
We enjoyed our food but it took probably 30-40 minutes to get us our food. It also took 5+ minutes to get us our check and another 5+ minutes to run our card. The place wasn't even full.Why was service so slow?The soba noodles were slightly undercooked. We loved the udon side that came with the tonkatsu lunch combo. Next time I will try their udon!
Food is great, soba is absolutely tasty. But couple things I want say that makes it not perfect.It’s quite slow, portion is small and also pricey. Soba and udon is around 17 ea. quality is good but considering the price, may not come again unless I’m super craving for soba or udon.
One of my favorite place in town. Soba Udon KatzuDon Curry everything is so tasty. Specially shrimp tempura is so delicious and crunchy.