Tasting Menu at Shunji (West LA)

Shunji is one of the hot recent restaurant openings, with Chef Shunji Nakao's serving his "contemporary" omakase in an inconspicuous stand-alone building on Pico Blvd. There are only a handful of tables and a few seats at the sushi bar, and the chef prepared most of the dishes personally (some get fired in the kitchen).

His printed menu looks like the standard Japanese restaurant, but we had read about his omakase (the omakase was not printed on the menu) and just asked for that.

As an amuse bouche, a small bowl of jelly with cucumber and vinegar sauce

Next is a plate of small bites of vegetables, ankimo topped with caviar, a ball of purple potato with blue cheese and persimmon, and sweet potato with feta and truffle

Unsure if we were supposed to eat these in a particular order, we moved in one direction and it moves from rich (ankimo) to the palate cleansing, crisp, unadorned vegetables to the creamy potatoes

The scallop sashimi, topped with arugula flower, was so fresh

Read more »

Kiyokawa's New Sashimi-centric Omakase

Kiyokawa had been on my to-try list for some time since Jonathan Gold loved it so much, but I had sort of forgotten about this little place in Beverly Hills and stored it in the back of my mind. I recently dug it out and made it a point to finally go.

There are two omakase options at Kiyokawa, a full omakase (kaiseki) for $78 or a sushi-only omakase for $48. As I sat down and read the omakase menu there were things like miso black cod and other cooked items, but then they told me to ignore the menu. They had just started a new omakase menu and it was completely different than what was written. They recently changed the omakase menu to be more sashimi-focused rather than cooked dishes. Sounds even better to me.

Sushi Chef Satoshi Kiyokawa

Our first course came in an orange sitting on ice. Inside the orange was some halibut sashimi with cucumber sunomono and tomato


Albacore salad topped w crispy green onion

This was a rather big plate for a second course with plenty of albacore. As the ponzu sauce that normally comes with albacore tends to be too astringent for me at times, I preferred this.

Live sweet shrimp and Hama Hama oyster topped with uni

Did I mention the amaebi was a live? The legs attached to the head were still moving on the ice! (Sorry PETA)

Still, the oyster with the creamy uni stole the show for me.

Read more »

SUGARFISH: Quality Sushi, "Everyday Luxury"

Emmanuele (Lele) Massimini and his friends were avid fans of Sushi Nozawa and made the trek from Santa Monica to Studio City every week for Chef Kazunori Nozawa's sushi. When Chef Nozawa mentioned his concept of bringing his high quality sushi at a cheaper price to them, the SUGARFISH team was born.

Photo courtesy of SUGARFISH

Read more »

Gonpachi - Torrance and the Miyako Hybrid Hotel

Upon pulling into the Miyako Hybrid Hotel parking lot I already loved the place: they have special parking spaces for Fuel Efficient Vehicles. Go Prius!

We were invited for a tasting of the Gonpachi Restaurant that opened as part of the Miyako Hybrid hotel. I remembered going to the Beverly Hills Gonpachi but that was so long ago before they changed their menu.

Unlike the very traditional decor at the Gonpachi Beverly Hills, the Gonpachi Torrance went for a more modern and "hip" look.

While waiting for the others to finish their hotel tour (coming from Pasadena, we couldn't make it to Torrance on time), I had a shoju-based cocktail at the bar.
We started with some Zensai (appetizers): tofu, shrimp shinjo, kinpira
The shrimp shinjo was paired with a sweet & sour fish sauce. The tofu seemed to be homemade and had a nicely rich texture.

Our meals were paired with the following sakes: Hakkaisan, Aiyama Nanbu-bijin (a floral sake), and Onikoroshi Daiginjo

Kobe Beef Carpaccio with ponzu and spicy miso sauce.
The kobe carpaccio had a seared edge and a smoky smell.

The most impressive item that night was definitely the Sashimi platter.
Abalone, salmon, squid, tuna, orange surf clams and more.

Here they serve Hokkaido "Bafun" uni, not your usual Santa Barbara, and it actually has a stronger, sweeter and more concentrated flavor, although it's actually not as creamy.

The sashimi was followed by Gindara (grilled miso marinated black cod)
Very tender, flaky and sweet. It pairs well with the onikoroshi. It's served atop rice with edamame and seaweed.

Sushi plate
I found that the fish, and especially the toro, to be of very good quality, but the rice was too dense.

Just like their Beverly Hills counterpart did, Gonpachi handmakes their soba in-house.
They do this in a small room with glass windows so patrons can actually watch it being made as you walk into the entrance.
We had the Zaru soba to semi-end the meal before the dessert.
The soba here is certainly better than store-bought dried soba (although it's no Ichimiann). Soba-yu is also served with it.

After cleansing with a cup of hojicha that had a lovely roasted aroma, for dessert we had the Pumpkin Zenzai (sweet red beans, mochi balls, vanilla ice cream in pumpkin soup, topped with almonds).
I've had this dessert before and have always enjoyed it very much. I'm happy to see it is served here also.

Torrance is a mecca of Japanese food in this area, but the "fine dining" and sushi restaurants are still lacking. With its ambiance and setting in this new LEED silver-certified hotel, Gonpachi is poised to fill this gap for the locals. After all, as much as we love Ichimiann and Otafuku, we can't very well hold a business meeting there.

Gonpachi - Torrance
21381 South Western Avenue
Torrance, CA 90501
(310) 320-6700

Toshi Sushi (Little Tokyo): Omakase vs "Omakase"

Craving sushi, I remembered that Toshi Sushi in downtown has received a lot of praise from fellow bloggers recently, including Sinosoul, djjewelz, and others.
We came on Easter night and the restaurant was empty. I asked to sit at the sushi bar, and the waitress asked what I was going to order. Sushi? Probably Omakase?

Then she asked what kind of omakase I'm ordering, the set or something-or-other.
Toshi Sushi offers an "Omakase" Sushi set that is printed on the menu. For $44.50 you get:
daily appetizers, asari (clam) miso soup, wagyu tataki, grilled black cod, and "most valuable 10 pieces of sushi assortment of the day", and ice cream. This is the meal that djjewelz reviewed.

OK, understandable if the place was full, but why do they care if the restaurant is empty. Moving on, I said I'll order whatever is needed for me to sit at the sushi bar.
We ended up getting a full-on omakase. Whatever Toshi-san wants.

1. We started with some appetizers: seaweed from Japan, mountain yam, shark fin, and pear.
Some of you may be furious about the sharks fin offered here, but I wasn't. I grew up loving sharkin and stil do ... A nice combination of texture here between the sticky yam and seaweed and the crisper pear and sharkfin.

2. Halibut with marinated seaweed.
This first sushi course is a wonderful introduction of the freshness of the sushi we were about to have and the subtlety of Toshi-san's touch.

3. Bluefin tuna from Spain (that I forgot to take a photo of).
It's smooth and fatty, amazingly so for a non-toro tuna.

4. Snapper from Japan.
Fresh and chewy. The marinade is light and not overwhelming.

5. Deep fried octopus.
Chewy texture. The batter is a bit salty and greasy but the dish overall is good and flavorful.

6. Mackerel with marinated seaweed.
The mackerel has a natural saltiness. Both the flavor and texture are quite nice.

7. Chu-toro bluefin tuna from Spain.
This piece was not too fatty but still melts in your mouth and has that nice oily flavor. And of course, fresh.

8. Here we moved back to a lighter set of appetizers. A trio of dishes:

Sea cucumber
Nice and crunchy, surprisingly so as usually cooked sea cucumber is very fatty and tendon-like. Still, if you're used to sea cucumber you would enjoy this and otherwise it might be too weird.

Kumamoto oysters.
This has a bit too much sauce for my taste.

Baby squids.

Sweet and slimy. Loved it.

9. Now we're back to the fattier and heavier side of the meal, starting with Hamachi belly.
My favorite, always. Fatty but still a bit chewy. Nice flavor

Next came the most memorable and unique dish of the night:
10. Slowly baked bluefin tuna cheek.
This was my first time having cooked bluefin tuna cheek and it was amazing. It was tender but a bit chewy and meaty, had lots of flavor, a lot of oil. Excellent. If Toshi has this when you go, do try it.

11. O-toro (again, forgot to take a photo. Guess I was hungry!)
Melts in your mouth, definitely much fattier than the chu-toro.

12. Seared salmon belly with foie gras.
Fat on fat. Oh yes. The texture and flavor combinations are great, in that fatty melt-in-your-mouth-save-my-heart kind of way.

Because my companion loves his tamagoyaki, he asked for an order. Instead, we were given a tasting of three tamagoyakis:
13. Tamagoyaki with seaweed powder, tamagoyaki with yam, shiso, and plum, and a regular tamagoyaki.
In those Japanese comics or drama people always argue whether or not they like the salty or sweet tamagoyaki. Well, here we have both and more.

14. Aji from Japan.
The sushi here is never overwhelmed by sauces.

15. To finish up, I had an order of really sweet uni (Santa Barbara) while my not-an-uni-lover-companion had some ikura.
16. Followed by an order of unagi.
Nicely seared meaty unagi and again, not doused in too much sauce.

Brown rice tea to cleanse off.

Most people would count uni or unagi as their “dessert” but we have such a sweet tooth interesting so we got a couple:

“Chocolate Souffle”
It’s a perfectly fine dessert but I do not think this is a proper soufflé. This isn’t the first time I encounter “soufflés” at Japanese restaurants (and beyond) though. The vanilla mochi ice cream, though, was quite good and noticeably fresher than ones you get at the grocery stores (prompting us to walk across the street to Mikawaya!)

Panna CottaThis dessert worked better than the soufflé for us.

This meal wasn't $44.50. Obviously, right? That would've been amazing. Still, we got away with ~$80 per person after tax and tips which I still think was a great deal considering what we ate.
I was quite impressed with the quality of the sushi we had, and that baked bluefin tuna cheeks? Incredible.

Toshi Sushi
359 E 1st St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 680-4166
www.sushicateringtoshi.com

Sashi Sushi+Sake Lounge, Manhattan Beach

When I was invited to a dinner at Sashi in Manhattan Beach (extended thanks to Glutster), the name Makoto Okuwa was somehow familiar to me. Upon hearing that he worked under Iron Chef Morimoto and was also among his crew in the TV show, I finally remembered seeing him in a cook-off against Top Chef contestant Betty Fraser at the LA Mag Food Event back in 2008.

Chef Makoto Okuwa grew up in Nagoya and eventually moved to New York where he worked under Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Now he has his own place in Manhattan Beach: Sashi.
After Mattatouille, Glutster and I lounged on the chilly beach for a while and reminiscing about our Bali trip(the last time we were all at a beach!), a family-style tasting menu at Sashi began. We were joined by Pardon My Crumbs, Kevin Eats, Sushi Lush, and Active Foodie. We had so many dishes I will not be able to go through them all here, so I will just give you about the top 80% of what we ate that night.

We all love to start with some bubbles. Luckily even for this japanese food/sake dinner we can still get our bubblies with the "Flower Sparkling" Hana Hou Hou Shu. A bit sweeter than champagne, but otherwise crisp and easily drinkable. I, for one, appreciated having a sparkling to start.

For the amuse bouche: "New England Clam Chowder"
A playful rendition of the classic clam chowder using a small air bread (a la The Bazaar) infused with the chowder and topped with manila clams and some truffle oil. It's a nice introduction to Chef Makoto Okuwa.

Crispy asparagus (lightly beer battered tempura asparagus served with nori aioli) -$7
A simple dish, but we all liked this. The light batter did not hide the texture and flavor of the fresh asparagus.

Lemon oregano mushroom (char grilled shitake mushroom with oregano pesto) -$8
Whether such a strongly flavored dish is a good appetizer before all the oysters and sashimi I'm not sure, but that aside I love both shiitake and pesto and while I never thought of the combination of the two I decided I loved it.

Kumamoto oysters (half dozen) - $18
Each of the fresh oyster was dressed differently.

Sashimi wrap (butter lettuce, asian herbs, gochujang sauce, wasabi soy, and miso aioli. Choice of 5 fresh fish) -$26
For us the 5 fish were: salmon, aoyagi, hamachi, tai, and tuna.
They serve very high quality sashimi here at Sashi. The lettuce wrap is supposed to be a nod to the Korean ssam wraps and surprisingly I did like the sashimi with the gojuchang sauce and the lettuce wrap, although I think I still prefer soy sauce and wasabi.

Gindara (alaskan wild black cod marinated in sweet miso) - $5 (per skewer)
This robata take on the famous Nobu dish had a slight smokiness and nicely charred crispy bits around the edges. The rest is sweet and fall-apart tender.

Steam bun (roasted kurobuta pork belly, pickled cucumber, kewpie slaw, scallion) -$13
A fatty pork bun that was made even richer by the kewpie mayo (and I'm all about kewpie mayo). A pretty good rendition of pork steam bun that is somewhat of a combination between Momofuku's and Ippudo's. The bun is a bit thick here but overall still good.

Toro tartar with caviar (chopped medium fatty tuna served in soy dashi broth with freshly grated wasabi and paddlefish caviar) -$28
Toro with caviar? How indulgently exciting. The tartar had a good texture but the flavor was dominated mainly by the scallions. Since it was colder than I think it should've been, I couldn't taste the toro as much as I would've liked.

Black tiger prawn tempura (tempura battered black tiger prawns mixed in wasabi aioli sauce served on a baby frisee salad) -$16
For the Chinese in the group, this is probably reminiscent of the walnut shrimp minus the walnut. In any case, you can't go wrong with crunchy battered fresh shrimp in aioli.


Tai with uni (thinly sliced japanese snapper topped with sweet sea urchin, yuzukosho and shiso salad) -$18
An interesting combination of two from opposite ends of the spectrum: the lean tai with the creamy uni. (though, it left me wanting more uni. I can use a whole uni for myself.)

King crab claws "corn dogs" (lemon thyme, sea salt and served with a lemon grass dipping sauce) -$17
An interesting dish and while I liked both the batter and the crab meat, I still prefer my crab prepared simply roasted or boiled. I do believe frying dries it up a bit.

Wagyu "hot rock" (thinly sliced japanese wagyu beef prepared "table side") -$28
These Japanese wagyu slices come with a certificate of authenticity. These amazing slices of meat are yours to cook yourself tableside. There's no way to screw this up, delicious all the way.

Tuna sashimi pizza (tuna carpaccio, cilantro, cherry tomato, red onion, black olives and jalapeno) -$14
Besides this we also had a chicken teriyaki pizza ($15). Both were fine but I can't get that excited about pizzas at a Japanese restaurant.

Even though we were all stuffed at this point, most of us opted to try out one of Makoto's unique Nagoya-rooted offerings:
20: taiwan ramen noodle (nagoya style spicy noodle soup served with beef and pork, asian chives, and dried red chili) -$11
OK so we were expecting a small tasting-size bowl, not a full-sized portion, but regardless this ramen turned out to be the night's favorite for many. And, yes sir, it was quite spicy.

We finished with desserts by pastry chef Kei Hasegawa (formerly from Nobu).
Bamboo cup (chocolate orange mousse, cinnamon crumble, green tea ice cream, cointreau foam) -$8
Though you can't tell from this photo, the bamboo cup held layers of the mousse, the ice cream, etc. This had a nice light tartness to it.

Japanese frozen yogurt (calpico flavor yogurt and mango passion fruit sorbet served with fresh berries) - $8
This was also light and tart but I found that the tartness overwhelmed the berries too much for my taste.

Toban yaki (bananas, pineapple, and fuji apples baked in a toban pot served with a passion fruit white chocolate sauce and coconut ice cream) -$16
Easily my favorite dessert. These fruits cooked in the creamy passionfruit chocolate sauce were the perfect ending for that chilly night for me.

Perhaps my initial expectation was biased by the fact that I was in Manhattan Beach (though I recently had some pretty good eats there), but I was happily surprised by Chef Makoto Okuwa's food. Most of the dishes are variations of familiar and popular fusion dishes, but they were well executed and he has sourced good quality ingredients. Though it would be great to see more of the chef's own personal flair on the menu as he demonstrated with the amuse bouche, Sashi provides a solid meal. And a bowl of that taiwan ramen noodle would do one well after a cool night on the beach.

Sashi: sushi+sake lounge
451 Manhattan Beach Blvd
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
(310) 545-0400