Doing sushi as well Saturday night as this is what the mother/wife requested. Since we live in the middle of no where our best option is Sushi Noguchi. They did a nice job for takeout last weekend.
I posted this topic the other day but on the wrong board. I’ve only been on FTC for like 4-5 years.
Inspired by a recent Matt Kang tweet and Eater blurb (April 27th), we picked up from Sonoratown this week. Hadn’t been there in a while (years?), and I was pretty disappointed. The Asada tasted like crunchy lighter fluid*, and the salsas were bland.
Their tortillas are very good though, and we did get an extra pack which were great for all kinds of things over the next couple days. But I’m sticking with Asadero Chikali, Mexicali, and (best of all) the various Tijuana style spots for my Asada going forward.
*(I consider this a bad thing, but the wife enjoyed it. Though she usually wants her beef to be about as close to jerky as possible, so make of that what you will)
Ohshima and Noguchi are definitely the two best sushi spots in North OC. I went to OMG in Santa Ana once and it was good but need a few more trips to properly rate.
If I had to choose I would take Noguchi for these reasons
Noguchi is much easier to get into. The Ohshima reservation process is annoying. No online reservations and sometimes it’s hard to get through on the phone lines. We’ve waited for an hour + before at Ohshima and it gets annoying.
I don’t like having to order their set piece omakase. There are certain “boring” pieces of nigiri that I would not normally order.
Ohshima can sometimes be overly generous with the saucing on each type of fish. They like to apply sauce on the fish for you.
A royally great Cinco de Mayo feast to enjoy at home, from Chef/Jefe Carlos Haro and his team at Casablanca Restaurant (Venice)… The entire Taco Bar & Margarita Take-out Special was so festive and delicious - especially their housemade tortillas. Stupendously good! #LoveInTheTimeOfCorona
For a one time deal, I think those issues were much less noticeable and since that was our first attempt at high quality sushi in OC, the mild hoop jump of the reservation didn’t really bother me. I don’t recall it being a set omakase but that might be something we would notice if we returned on a regular basis.
Several of the pieces did have sauce on them and my wife usually does not like the fish to be sauced but we found all of the additions to be worthwhile. Also something that is likely to have diminishing returns.
Sounds like Noguchi may be the way to go. I think what led me to Ohshima was the way Noguchi describes their omakase which made me think it was more set in stone and likely to have some of the boring nigiri…
Ricky’s was decent, we went right before they were closing so maybe didn’t get the cream of crop filets… when i went a year ago it was definitely better. They were pretty busy but people were distancing with masks.