Tanuki is a Japanese izakaya and sake bar on Adams Avenue in Kensington, San Diego, built around the idea of cultivating a Japanese sake drinking culture in the neighborhood. The menu mixes traditional izakaya small plates — karaage fried chicken, agedashi tofu, sunomono cucumber salad — with a full sushi and sashimi program that includes wagyu tataki ponzu, salmon carpaccio, and hamachi jalapeño rolls. Kensington's commercial stretch of Adams Avenue east of Kensington Drive carries a village-scale walkability that makes Tanuki a natural pairing with Kensington Cafe next door, where breakfast and lunch traffic feeds into Tanuki's dinner service. The sake list anchors the beverage program with a rotating selection of bottles and pours paired to the kitchen's range, and periodic Sante events offer ticketed multi-course dinners where sake flights accompany a progression of seasonal dishes. The restaurant seats diners indoors, at the bar, and on an outdoor patio where dogs are welcome, giving Kensington residents a range of options across roughly 50 seats in the 92116 ZIP. Restaurants in Kensington draw a steady local clientele, and Tanuki's izakaya format — designed around shared plates and extended conversation — fits the neighborhood's residential, small-business character. Lunch service runs a bento box program with miso, rice, and protein combinations that serve the weekday crowd, while dinner shifts into the fuller izakaya experience with cocktails, Japanese beer, and nigiri cut to order. Post-concert crowds from Viejas Arena spill into Normal Heights and Kensington for late-night food, and Tanuki's evening hours catch that wave on weekend event nights. The Italian dining scene in Kensington rounds out the corridor at Zia Gourmet Pizza, a Neapolitan-style pizzeria a short walk west, giving Adams Avenue east of Kensington Drive a two-restaurant anchor for date-night dining. The crispy rice with spicy tuna topping and the wagyu tataki in ponzu sauce are the two most-ordered appetizers, and both benefit from the kitchen's focus on sourcing fish with enough fat content to carry the acid in the dipping sauces.