tajima japanese restaurant

stopped by the new tajima on the way home from work today. this is the one on mercury that opened late last year; there's another one on convoy that we ate at a while back which was quite good. i know clairemont mesa doesn't count as urban san diego, but there too much good asian food up there to ignore it.

since this is an izakaya style restaurant, there's lots of small, inexpensive dishes, meant for casual dining and as an accompaniment to your after-work imbibing. i started off with some of the best miso soup i've had, and for my cold appetizer entrees, i had the shark fin with plum sauce and a cucumber dish. both were unique in flavor and a great warm up to my main dish, a pork and soba noodle plate, pictured above. jay had the kaarage, which was a delicious fried chicken dish, gyoza pork dumplings (tasty and light) and a california roll. there were several additional items on the menu that we want to try, but i did recognize the cold octopus dish, which was quite chewy and good at the old tajima. and if you're up late and need your ramen fix, remember tajima's open til 3am!