It is Guai Lo's birthday!! To honor his tradition (Japanese birthday dinner), I picked a sushi place in downtown LA that I have been dying to try. Their menu is rather simple, there are two choices of omakase, Kaede and Tsubaki. The difference between them are a couple of sashimi courses, and obviously the price differs. My philosophy has always been going for the full experience when possible. Who knows whether we will ever have a chance to come back here, and that applies to both food and travel experiences. It was totally worth it!
This is a very small restaurant with a counter space for 10 and 4 tables. I highly recommend sitting at the counter space because you can watch how the food is made, and the sushi chef will explain each dish to you. It is definitely a better experience.
We ordered a small bottle of daiginjo. I am never a big fan of sake, but that was a sake that I liked. They have a wide selection of different grade of sakes, and it ranges from $45 to $1000 (cannot imagine what the $1000 bottle taste like). We started off with a couple sashimi appetizers, including Hokkaido scallop, oysters, toro, etc., and every single one was absolutely delicious. The most unforgettable one was the fatty tuna. It was like butter, literally melted in my mouth.
One interesting thing is the wasabi they use. It was actually from the real plant, and they made it in front of you. The real wasabi does not taste as strong as the one you buy outside (those are mostly just horseradish), and it went perfectly with the sushi.
Next, sushi! There are a total of 13 different sushi, including fresh river trout, squid, tuna, snapper, uni(sea urchin), etc., and every single one of them are fresh and delicious.
At last, they have the egg cake as dessert. It might not look especially appealing, but I actually asked for another one after having my first one. It was so fluffy! Surprisingly, it is made of 60% shrimp, which I could not tell at all, and that was what made it so fluffy like a cake.
After the meal, Guai lo and I were discussing about all the sushi places we've been to, and concluded that this is so far the best sushi we have had, and shunji is a close second. We have been so spoiled with good quality sushi that we decided that we rather not have sushi unless it's good. I am going to continue this Japanese birthday dinner tradition every year, and I cannot wait to hunt down another good place to try next year!