Another trendy sushi spot

Last Friday I took a lawyer friend of mine to dinner, to thank him for all his help in some matter against BofA (if you're interested, see this post).

He suggested we go for sushi, and requested that the place also serve martinis. I figured that would limit me to the trendy sushi restaurants. I decided to try a place I have never been to, and since Hokusai had some good reviews on citysearch, I thought I would give it a try.

The place was loud, as expected. We arrived on time but the table wasn't ready, so we waited about 15 minutes. They did have a list of martinis. I ordered a cantaloupe martini and he ordered a lemon drop martini. The martini was very strong, and not sweet enough for my personal taste.

They had something called a 90211 roll that I really wanted. It had wagyu beef, foie gras, and black truffles. Unfortunately, they were out of wagyu beef :( so I settled for other things.

We got some sashimi/carpaccio dishes. This was the tuna wasabi
I thought this was pretty good, although too spicy for me! (I'm weak sauce). The tuna was pretty fresh and the sauce was delicious. Again, spicy though.

They mistakenly placed this tuna carpaccio that was meant for another table on ours:
They said it's ours now and on the house since it was their mistake. Underneath all those stuff are slices of tuna. I really like this dish, since it had lots of mayo-based sauce and I love mayo. It is quite different from other carpaccio dishes I've had before and it's quite a refreshing change.
And free is always good too! :)

We also ordered some regular sushi. Some salmon, salmon belly, hamachi belly, etc
The fish itself is not bad although not comparable to real sushi places like Sasabune, Asakuma, Mori etc. The slices were small though and they put too much rice.
This place was definitely better for the carpaccio/appetizer dishes than the sushi.

We got the chocolate moelleux for dessert. Good, standard chocolate souffle:
Better than what a lot of places dare to call "souffle", though not the best.

All in all, I liked the appetizers and the creativity in the dishes, but sushi and the fish itself is subpar.

Hokusai Restaurant
8400 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Journey for Legendary Ramen

Yesterday we made a day trip and met up with a friend in Costa Mesa to go to the legendary ramen fair in Mitsuwa Costa Mesa.
It was super crowded and they even had valet parking. Valet parking at Mitsuwa??
We ended valet-ing anyway, though, since we couldn't find parking.

On the way in, we saw carts selling sweet potatoes and roasted chestnuts. We bought a sweet potato, which was very moist and sweet. It did have an aftertaste that we couldn't quite place. It might have been the charcoal? At any rate, it was still tasty to me.

We lined for the shio ramen. They had closed down the udon place to make room for the ramen in these few days. The other eating places were still busy like usual though.

They gave us numbered tickets and after a brief wait got our ramen. The main hurdle is finding a place to seat! We had our eye on this table but the couple sitting there, although done with their meal, just kept talking ... and talking ... Eventually they left! Yay!

Now I can enjoy my ramen. This is the Asameshi Maeda Honten shio ramen:
Al dente noodles. Very very flavorful broth (a bit too salty for two of my friends, though). Tender (almost) melt in your mouth pork.
Is it legendary? Is it the best ramen I've ever had? I don't know if it's legendary, but it's pretty f-ing good. Way better than ramen places on Sawtelle, better than Daikokuya even.

We were gonna go to Torrance on the way home, but we ended up at Boomer's and since we didn't want to leave until we did 5 rounds of go-karting, I had to say bye bye to the other ramen *sob*

Things to Slurp: Soba!

Right now I prefer soba to, say, ramen or udon, and my favorite place right now is Yabu on Pico! If you guys know other good soba places, please let me know :>
My only gripe about yabu is that they don't have soba with beef or pork (I like my red meat).

This time I ordered the Tori Toji Soba (chicken with eggs).The broth is soo tasty. This time around I didn't find much chicken though, bummer, but everything inside that bowl is so good (organic eggs, chicken, fish cake, green onions). I was mainly going for the eggs anyway. It would be good to have more meat/other things inside though, I think. Maybe tempura.

Their soba is handmade fresh daily (their claim to fame?) and was quite al-dente.

My friend got the broiled black cod, which was also good, but a bit salty. The veggies, especially the mushrooms, go really well with the cod , though.
Yabu
11820 W. Pico Blvd
W. Los Angeles, CA 90064