Friend was in town, and I was trying to figure out where to go. Randomly decided to do a search on Tock using the $$$$ filter and the only two options were this and Commis. Was a bit surprised to see a seemingly-legit omakase place that I hadn’t seen mentioned anywhere before, particularly this far out, but pictures looked good and there weren’t any real red flags, so decided to take a chance on it.
Snow Crab Sunomono
Crab was ok, seaweed & cucumber were very good.
Uni Chawanmushi
With a lot of other stuff in there (small shrimp, scallop, edamame, ginko nut, mitsuba, etc). Pretty cohesive despite the variety. Solid.
Kanpachi Sashimi
Great cut of fish.
Hirame
Kinmedai
Branzino-zuke
Iwana
Ma-saba
Akami-zuke
Tachiuo
Chutoro
Supplements (i.e. bonus rounds!)
Sake
Hamachi
Akamutsu (nodoguro)
Hotate
Engawa
Amaebi
Back to the regular menu…
Tamago
Akadashi
Jasmine Tea Jello with Cheese Cream & Tempura Flakes
Really surprisingly good. I’m not big on either of the constituent parts, but the jasmine was quite subtle and the cheese cream had the right balance of sweet & savory without totally overwhelming the jasmine. The tempura flakes stayed impressively crunchy and didn’t get soggy.
Menu
Highlights from the nigiri:
Hirame
Kinmedai
Branzino-zuke
Akami-zuke
Chutoro
Engawa (the winner of the night)
Overall thoughts? The baseline menu is a steal at at $105/head. It’s not a ton of food but the chawanmushi pulls its weight so light eaters might not be hungry by the end (or just grab a snack an hour ahead of time, since there are two(?) seatings a night and the second is at 8:00). The supplements seem oddly overpriced compared to the pricing implied by the regular menu - I managed to nearly double my bill with an additional 6 pieces? But I’d be happy to skip some of them next time (including the akamutsu) and you’d still have a hard time doing better at or under the $150 price point in LA. Reservations are plentiful.
