Ishoni Yakiniku Review

Jason here. Finally another Bellevue restaurant review. While our family was up visiting we wanted to take them to experience a Yakiniku restaurant. We just so happen to have Ishoni here in Bellevue. It can be hard to spot from the road, but they do have parking available.

If you are interested in Yakiniku restaurants in general, go check out our Yakiniku reviews from Japan.

Ishoni has approximately 6 large tables for guests, which seat six guests comfortably. We definitely recommend you go with a group of 4 or more, so you can make reservations a couple days in advance and get a table for your group. The way ordering works is this: you receive a large menu which lists all of the various items to order. While you could order something just for yourself, it’s much better to have everyone order 1 or 2 items at a time and then split it up amongst the group. This will help you try out the largest variety of the delicious and fresh dishes Ishoni offers.

If you feel like you need soy sauce, I would bring a small packet of gluten free Tamari or Soy sauce with you. Due to the freshly prepared nature of the food, and that you cook it on the grill in front of yourself, most of the items are gluten free. In general though you will have to make sure you order the salt & pepper versions, or make sure to ask your waiter to be sure the sauce versions are gluten free.

Our meal was delicious. We ordered a large variety of items including beef tongue, duck, chicken with butter, mackerel, cuttlefish, and a vegetable combo. My favorite of course was the beef tongue, but cuttlefish came in a surprising second. I had not had cuttlefish before, and found it to taste very similar to other shellfish. The duck was very succulent, so I recommend it as well. In fact, every item we received was fresh, and clearly higher grade. The beef was extremely marbled, the chicken juicy, the vegetables fresh, and on and on.

Not only was our food delicious, but the price was excellent. Considering the quality of the food here, what you pay is a steal. Kayleigh and I hope to make Ishoni a regular spot for us now.

Kayleigh here. We were just ecstatic to find out that there was a Yakiniku restaurant this close to home, after making some lovely memories at ones during out honeymoon. While we really took a risk going here, we found that almost none of the dishes came with any sort of sauce or marinade beyond a simple oils, salt, and pepper. We still made sure to ask about everything we ordered (and found that the starter miso soup was not safe), and were lucky enough to have the entire table willing to stick with gluten free choices. If you end up going with a group that wants to order something unsafe, make sure to designate a gluten free grill and tongs at the table, to avoid cross contamination. I am willing to bet that you can ask for an additional pair of tongs to just use on gluten items, too.