Wakano Ura

My spies tell me that there may be some controversey brewing at the SN&R between ex-editor Jackson Griffith and Christian Kiefer. I'll investigate further.

This is so cool! I was searching the net for stuff on Wakano Ura, because I was guessing it must be one of the oldest Japanese restaurants in Sac (the chop suey sign is the big clue), and I found something on Chowhound.com (which is a great resource, mostly for New York, but Sac gets mentioned a fair amount on the cali message board). It has a little of the history, check it out: http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/california/messages/16482.html
here's a continuation of that review-it tells about the history of chop suey!
http://www.chowhound.com/california/boards/california/messages/16493.html
And that search led me to an article about a book that tells about sac's Japantown:
http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/ourtown/history/jtown.html
I'm gonna buy the book when I get paid next month.

Anyway, on to my review. We went there in search of a chicken soup that Homzee remembered as really good. Poor guy is getting sick. The place is cavernous, but half the dining room is sectioned off with screens, which led me to wonder whether this place was so hoppin' in the 50's or 60's that they needed the whole space. It's a no-frills place, but still cute somehow. There is a small salad bar that has fried chip-things, edamame, pickled bean sprouts, and iceberg salad with sesame dressing. I think that the salad bar is free to any patron, but I'm not quite sure because the menu was confusing on that point. They have really cheap cold sake, 2.75 for an adorable little bottle with a pop-top. It was good. The waitress was so sweet, there was a bit of a language barrier, but we basically overcame it. That's a run-on sentence, but fuck it. Is that a run-on too? Anyway, I ordered under pressure because I hadn't had much time with the menu, but I got a box dinner with veggie tempura and crispy tofu. That's right, two fried things. H got the roasted chicken noodle soup. My dinner was really tasty. The veggie tempura had two asparagus spears that were cooked perfectly. It came with a little pork gyoza that had it's own vinegary and spicy dipping sauce. Delicious. The tofu had a nice crispy coating that was totally different from tempura and it was soft as butter inside. It was sitting in a sauce that was a bit overly sweet, but it was still really good. The cali roll that came with was not good. It was mushy and tasteless. H liked his chicken soup, but it wasn't quite as good as he remembered. It came with a chopped-up chicken leg on top, with plenty of noodles and broth. I tasted the broth and it sure was chicken-y! I'll report on whether it cured his cold. Oh yeah, my dinner included some strawberry-orange ice cream. Everyone there was sweet as hell and a couple of regulars came in and bought gift certificates for family members. I definitely recommend you give this place a try.