Wann Japanese Izakaya is a restaurant and bar with a harmonious layout: all neat rectangles, lacquered surfaces, gridded wood screens, and clean white cushions. Beige accent walls made of grooved plaster replicate raked sand. A couple rock-and-moss terrariums are inlaid in the dining-room floor, so precise and segmented and color-coordinated and well-lit that walking on them imparts a certain retro-futuristic-museum- diorama-spacecraft-fantasy-garden-wonderland effect.

Namesake happenings: Wann is a chain that's popular in Japan—the name is also slang for a top-banana overachiever, and "wan-wan" describes the sound of a dog's bark, which, just like "woof-woof," works in a limited way. Because really, what words could ever describe this noise that, were it made visible, would drift up and form murky brown, splintering, meatball-shaped puddles?

Happy hours: Mon–Tues noon–2:30 pm and 4 pm–close, Wed–Sun 4–7 pm, and, in the bar only, daily 10 pm–close.

Happy-hour drink specials: Select $4 cocktails—the Cassis Oolong has black currant liqueur and oolong tea; $5 cosmopolitans; $4 house wine; $3.50 drafts (Sapporo, Kirin Ichiban, Mac & Jack's); $4 wells; $4–$5 hot, nigori, or fruit-infused sake.

Happy-hour food specials: A fabulously long menu including $6 salmon poke; $3 kushikatsu deep-fried kabob; $4 yam fries; $4 shrimp shu mai; $5 udon; $5.50 spider roll; $10 sashimi set with tuna, salmon, yellowtail, albacore, and octopus.