The Place: Aka Sushi House
2390 West Alabama St.
713-807-7875
www.akasushi.net

The Hours: Monday through Saturday 3-7 p.m., 9-close. All day Sunday.

The Deals: Domestic beers are $2; imports are $2.50. Sake and sake cocktails run from $3 to $5. House wine is $4.50, wells are $4. Small appetizers and sushi specials run from $3 to $7.

The Scene: A few minutes after reverse happy hour started at Aka Sushi House on Wednesday night, the place was packed.

Other than a couple seats at the sushi bar, there wasn't anywhere to sit and not much room to even stand. For people there to mingle -- the Houston chapter of the National Association of Asian American Professionals was hosting a mixer -- it was a perfect atmosphere.

But two middle-aged white guys, dressed in slacks, button-downs and ties with electronic devices holstered to their belts, also seemed very at home sitting at the bar.

Aka is located in a retail strip a couple blocks east of the Kirby/West Alabama intersection, between Whole Foods and an apartment complex. But we guess it's a cool retail strip, because there's also Field of Greens, a (maybe overpriced) liquor store, and a dry cleaner where members of the Houston Rockets have been known to clean their clothes.

The interior is decorated with a mix of basic wood and the red color that seems to be popular at a lot of sushi restaurants: red leather chairs, red lights, red flags hanging from the ceiling.

The best thing about Aka is that after lunch, happy hour is running pretty much all day. And people seem to take advantage of it.

The hostess at Aka told us that the place usually isn't that busy, but we're not sure we believe her. On our last trip there on the tail end of a Friday evening, for example, the bar was so busy that it wasn't even worth fighting for a beer.

Conclusion: Aka is small, so it definitely has an electric feel. It didn't seem like anyone was there to do hardcore drinking, but everyone seemed to enjoy the food.