It was recommended in a response to my Sushi in the East Bay? thread, and I found a good opportunity to visit recently.
crystal bread, smoked salmon, wasabi avocado cream
Cute bite.
katsuo tataki salad
Katsuo was good. Red onion & black garlic pearls were a bit gimmicky. Salad was tasty but didn’t feel like it had to be in the same dish as the katsuo. Wasabi foam was unnecessary. Too busy, overall.
sushi, wrapped in bamboo leaf
unagi / vegetables (avocado, lotus root, cherry blossom leaf)
Surprisingly good. Don’t think I’ve had anything quite like this in LA before. I liked the unagi a bit more; I couldn’t really detect the cherry blossom leaf in the vegetable one. But the rice infused with the bamboo leaf was the highlight for both of them.
akami / isaki / saba / ika
Much better than I was expecting for having come out as a set. Both the fish and rice were better than any $100-tier sushi place I’ve been to in LA; I think you’d need to go to one of the $250+ places to do better (especially for the rice). The toppings were sometimes interesting but mostly unnecessary. Mostly just made me really want a slightly more traditional sushi-focused omakase served by the same chef. The akami and isaki were the highlights, though none of them were slackers.
palette cleanser
ume soda, yuzu foam
Tasty.
gindara katsu
Perfectly cooked; nice riff on the usual “miso black cod”. The white miso sauce wasn’t sweet, which was a nice change of pace. Chili strings on top were interesting.
mini donburi
???, tobiko, sea grapes / uni & ikura
Neither of these were particularly exciting, though the rice remained very good. Ikura was just ok and I have no idea what was going on with the other one.
hamachi / salmon / aji / hotate
Salmon and aji taking the lead on this one, but once again, all quite good.
kombu broth, yuzu zest, arare
Nice broth, though the arare didn’t really feel like it fit the dish.
pomegrante mochi filled with soft raw chocolate, seasonal fruit, kuromitsu, whipped cream, mint leaf
Very good mochi. Chocolate filling was nice, not overwhelming. Fruits were clearly farmer’s market picks (at least, the nectarines & berries; no idea about the starfruit). Kuromitsu was a good fit.
Very happy I made it out here. Mask policy is kind of silly - being asked to wear a poorly-fitting surgical mask while placing your order (which you do online, by scanning a QR code, after being seated) is security theater.
$100 feels like a steal, mostly because of the sushi. Other stuff was hit or miss - most of the misses just had too much going on, or just weren’t cohesive enough. But nothing was actually bad and quite a lot of was good.
