After reading the great reports from @Chowseeker1999, @J_L, and @TheCookie I finally made a reservation and had a great dinner. Looks like mori-san is now working at the end of the main bar instead of the smaller bar in the back. I ordered the “mori omakase”, highlights were the peach, kumquat, buri, kohada, aji, sayori, mirugai, uni, anago, tuna.
I really enjoyed talking to mori san, one of the friendliest itamaes i’ve eaten with.
waka momo - japanese baby green mountain peach gelee
wow @Chowseeker1999 you were right, this was shocking. i could have eaten ten more of these for dessert.
So glad you liked your meal with Mori-san at Shiki.
Isn’t it so good?
And regarding the Japanese baby mountain peach, yes! Just more of those for dessert is fine. Actually… hm! I think I’ll ask him to serve a couple more during dessert next time.
Wasn’t the Kohada so good?! It’s an incredible preparation and beautiful oily, briny flavor.
And, yah, Mori-san is such a joy to chat with. It makes a huge difference and a great experience, chatting it up with him, who has no pretension, no arrogance, and just makes the whole evening a great experience.
Those are very interesting shaped fish sperm sacs. The front most piece reminds me of namako/sea cucumber slices. First time seeing it simmered in…dashi? Must be really good.
The picture after agedashi tofu is kinpira (roughly meaning to sautee and simmer) hijiki (a type of sea vegetable) gobo (burdock) and carrot.
Good amount of roe in that grilled prawn head/tail portion!
Even the chopsticks are stamped! The kanji characters on them say “Yoshinosugi” which refer to cedar wood (sugi) from Yoshino area of Nara Prefecture. Cedar barrel stored/aged sake from Nara prefecture (using Yoshinosugi) is also quite excellent to have, as a side note.
You have answered a few questions about our own meal.
Now I’m pretty sure our Sashimi had Otoro and not Chutoro. I hedged because some Food Talkers say they are rarely served the fattiest of the fatties in L.A. But ours couldn’t possibly have been more melt in your mouth.
Kanji: Nemuro (referring to Nemuro province, Eastern coastline of Hokkaido)
Hiragana/Katagana: based on looking up charts since I don’t read, likely “Kawase”. A random guess would be either related to the vendor or the business that handles the processing/boxing. Easiest way to find out would be to ask Mori san about the sourcing/origin.
Last time I visited Mori Sushi, there was a nice tray of Nemuro uni as well (and there are varying grades, of course). Usually places just say “Hokkaido” or “bafun” uni, but there are different uni caught from various parts of Hokkaido. Last October/November some of the more interesting sushi omakase places in Tokyo and Saitama prefecture were sourcing uni from Konbumori area of Hokkaido. Part of this is because of what’s available in season and what middle wholesalers have access to at the moment for the restaurants over there (and for export over here).
as we’re hoping to do omakase with mori-san on our next visit to l.a, i hope you won’t mind my asking how much this set you back in the bank statement dept.
Actually… hm! I think I’ll ask him to serve a couple more during dessert next time. 
