Kato the restaurant on Santa Monica

I’m so curious about this particular place. Seats look incredibly weird from the yelp photos.

Not sure if you did a site search before posting, but @J_L wrote a characteristically lovely and thorough report on the restaurant a few months back:

Seats are ok, food is good, portions generally small but lots of them. There are several reasonably priced supplemental dishes not included in the $49.00 price point. I would plan on at least one supplemental dish.

Although there is a parking lot, it is small so best to consider finding parking on the street.

Agree with all of this.

It’s good, and worth going. Seats now have cushions which are much more comfortable than the hard surfaces. No one in my group had any issues with them.

I wanted to like the food more. But they were so nice, the sterile hole-in-the-wall concept combined with reasonably-price omakase-only - was just fun-fun-fun. Very L.A.

My dining partner that night was a former food critic and he thought the chicken dishes were terrific and stand out. He loved the place. He liked it more than I did. I wanted it to be a poor-man’s n/naka. But the flavor profile wasn’t the same.

I look forward to going back.

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going tonight, thanks for the update

Won’t be disappointed CB - excellent. I’d compare this to an Asian version of Trois Mec, sprinkled with bits of Alma here and there (latter probably because of chef’s experience).

My faves: smoked hamachi w/ charred scallion sauce (a la mozuku), brick chicken w/ vadouvan, dungeness crab + dried scallop porridge, and buttermilk pudding + granita dessert. The only thing that was meh to me was actually the lu rou fan, but there was an ikura don w/ shaved horseradish + uni as a supplement as well when I was there, and that was better IMO.

Yeah, that buttermilk panna cotta was RIDICULOUS.

Agree with all the accolades.
Very delicious food.
Fantastic fried quail with chili oil supplement last night. My photo below - though truly, truly terrible - hopefully captures a bit of the crunchiness of the coating and moistness of the meat. It was perfect and quite visually arresting when the whole quail, cut in half, arrived.

Uni/Crab rice, beeef tatere and Cold Fennel Soup were outstanding.

I’m definitely going to have to try that buttermilk.

What is that a picture of ? Chocolate cake with frosting

Ists 49 bux for everything ?

The restaurant’s website quite clearly lists the price:

http://katorestaurant.com/menu/

You will want to spring for a supplement or two.

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