Hamasaku 11043 Santa Monica Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025 Dining date: 11/7/13 Hamasaku’s been open for over a decade, although I feel like I only heard about it recently. The restaurant’s had a largely entertainment-based clientele (following its owner Michael Ovitz) and its most notable menu items are fusion sushi rolls, many named after celebrities…
Shunji Japanese Cuisine 12244 W Pico Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90064 Dining date: 11/4/13 Chef Shunji Nakao has been around the LA sushi scene for some time now (greater than two decades) being a key plater in some well-known past ventures (Matsuhisa, Asanebo, The Hump). His eponymous and short-lived Shunji’s on Melrose opened a couple…
Maru 12400 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90025 Dining date: 8/15/13 Maru opened a couple months ago in Santa Monica (on the border of Brentwood), a relocation of a restaurant in Valencia. The man behind the food is chef Jason Park, who mixes the Japanese/Korean influences of his childhood into his classically trained cooking background. A wide…
Shibucho 3114 Beverly Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90057 Dining date: 7/24/13 My friend and I decided to get dinner together with two particular stipulations: that it be sushi-centric and that it be a place neither of us had been to. Finding it difficult to find the ideal restaurant that fit these needs, we turned to…
Nozawa Bar SUGARFISH Beverly Hills 212 North Canon Dr Beverly Hills, CA 90210 Dining date: 5/18/13 SUGARFISH, the streamlined sushi concept from Nozawa, has been rapidly expanding across LA since opening its first location in Marina Del Rey five years ago. This Beverly Hills location is the 6th in the chain (a 7th in Calabasas…
Sushi Dai Tsukiji Fish Market 5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0045 Dining date: 11/21/12 I’d heard much about Sushi Dai well before coming to Japan, the super-popular sushi shop at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market. The stories are almost legendary, talking about the early mornings, long lines and exceptionally fresh fish mere yards away from the fish…
Sushi Yoshitake Suzuryu Building 3F 8-7-19 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0061 Dining date: 11/12/12 One of my food goals in Japan has been to find the best sushi I could possibly get my hands on. Sukiyabashi Jiro was initially what I had my sights on to satisfy this quest, but that didn’t work out; in hindsight,…
Sukiyabashi Jiro Roppongi 6-12-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032 Dining date: 11/4/12 Jiro Ono and his restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro have achieved a sort of legendary status. The documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi added to the attention and seemed to really put him onto the radar of Westerners (particularly Americans). Having seen the film, I can see…