Polly, Whitney and I met up for a ladies get together in downtown sometime in the middle of January. It’s been a month since we last met.

Whitney suggested either Cincin or Hapa Izakaya. I chose Hapa Izakaya which I have not blog before.

We arrived around 5:00PM. The restaurant was not too busy yet.

Our server told us it’s still happy hour time with a smaller menu. You can click on the menu to have a larger view.

We ordered a few items from the happy hour menu to start with. The above is Ika Okonomiyaki Bites, which is lightly fried “Japanese pancake” with wasabi-mayonnaise dipping sauce. This pancake bites were more doughy than the original okonomiyaki which I had eaten before. The original version will have a lot of cabbage.

The second happy hour item we had is Ebi Mayo. Six large tempura coated prawns with a generous coat of spicy mayonnaise.

Ika was good too. The grilled squid was tender and flavourful with sake soy garlic marinade.

The last happy hour item which we tried was Sausage Trio. The trio sausage is made up of smoked chicken and apple sausage, classic chorizo and pork sausage. It is served with a grainy dijon dip. Beware of the hot stone bowl which this is served in though.

All the happy hour items we tried were good and have good value for money.

We also ordered two items from the dinner menu to supplement the happy hour items. The above is Kinoko Meshi which is rice, mixed mushrooms, iwanori, served in a hot stone bowl. When the server brought the bowl, she quickly mixed everything up for us. So, I was not able to get a photo of it before mixing. The server told us to leave it for at least 3 minutes before digging in. This allows the rice to crisp up more.

We enjoyed this very aromatic rice dish. We hope it was a large bowl though.

The last item which we had is the Hapa Roll which was the most expensive item on our bill. The roll was small despite it’s price tag of $12.99.

The asparagus and carrot in the roll gives it the crunchiness.

Credit card is accepted here.

The restaurant gets busier and noisier into the evening. So, we adjourned to another place for dessert.