Downtown LA: Chaya Downtown

Where's one of the best place to grab happy hour in LA? Downtown, especially around the financial district. There's a bunch of restaurants and bars offering happy hour for all the professionals working around there.

Chaya Downtown is an upscale restaurant located right next to Drago Centro. Both offers all day happy hour so when we were contemplating on where to go for happy hour, we found out that Chaya had $2 Yakitori specials on Mondays so we opted for Chaya.

To get yakitori, you must sit at the "yakitori garden" aka the outdoor patio. As soon as you walk to the garden, you can immediately smell the yakitori grilling on the side by two Japanese chefs, which is a good sign of authenticity!

Chaya Downtown

525 S Flower St

Los Angeles, CA 90071

All yakitori items are $2!

Ordered shiitake mushroom, beef, and chicken skewers

Shiitake skewers. Very simply done with just a sprinkle of salt and either lime or yuzu to give it a little oomph.

I loved the beef skewers. It was cut up into a nice-sized cubes, 4 on a skewer. I'm guessing they used rib meat so it was really tender and succulent. The sauce that they use is amazing as well, since it had a stronger flavor than many yakitori restaurants. The chicken was white meat, cut up into similar size and dipped in the same sauce.

Kobe beef short rib melt. Tender short rib sitting in its own juices with onions and melted cheese on top. The artisan bread it came with was awesome. It seriously is a must have for happy hour.

Beautiful cheese browned in the broiler.

Seafood tartare roll. It wasn't made properly as some were falling apart.

Salmon skin roll. It was alright but even at $7 I felt a little jipped since salmon skin roll isn't expensive to start out with. Nevertheless, it was really good though.

Of course at happy hour, can't be without any drinks so I opted for the Abita Amber, which is seriously my favorite beer right now. Smooth, malty, and just plain delicious. Goes extremely well with Japanese food even though it is an amber ale.

Great happy hour. Now it is gonna be tough to choose between Drago or Chaya when I'm around now! Free valet doesn't hurt either haha.