a truly epic roll
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Yum!
where did you bang?
I was too drunk and went home 
Where did you go? You didnāt post it!
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Glorious double bang
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Holy cow, Providence?! what a night!! 
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Get to know him.
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Top ten LA restaurant.
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Iāll say a little more about Udatsu. The chef has a great palate. He designs creative dishes that donāt lose sight of balance and Japanese taste and restraint. His radish soup could have been served at a high level kaiseki restaurant like Hayato. Yet the meal has a luxurious feel, with lots of Clayfuās caviar, uni, and fatty tuna. The staff are truly smart, with unique backgrounds. I love the place and would choose it over any other sushi place in LA.
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Crazy that resys at the OG Udatsu in Tokyo seem easy to obtain. Are there 100 sushi spots in Tokyo better than LAās best? 500?
āBetter thanā seems too strong, though Japanese sushi has some objective advantages, such as access to a much wider variety of shellfish.
100 seems about right.
Another case in point: Iād never heard of Sushi Ginza Onodera before eating at their two Michelin starred branches in NYC and LA.
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the top 100 high end sushi spots in Tokyo are pretty comparable in terms of quality. I think the major difference is focus and personal style between them. Each chef brings their own flare, preferences, selection, and focus in their omakase.
I agree with @PeonyWarrior, the major difference between the best spots here and the best spots there is the proximity and (legal) access to the best ingredients.
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at the risk of coming across like an elitist wanker, I would say that letās be glad that LA has a new high end option with a unique angle and not focus too much on how many abroad may be ābetter.ā
i donāt think one can really reasonably expect LAās high-end Japanese food to be right at the top level of Japanās, but thatās totally fine. not everything here needs or can be right at the best in the world - there are plenty of delicious, good options here across a wide spectrum of styles, and thatās to be celebrated. in terms of high end sushi in America, right now perhaps NYC has the top options.
Udatsu in Nakameguro is represents a pretty good option in Tokyo, considering the nice setting, creative flair, ease of reservations, and their friendliness to foreigners. difficulty of reservations is of course not perfectly correlated to how good a restaurant is. itās a pretty good all-around option at any time, and thereās something to be said about being able to drop in instead of having to plan months in advance for somewhere ābetter.ā in fact, if iām taking specific people, it might be one of the options that comes to mind first.
i donāt like hierarchical lists or just boiling it down to numerical rankings, but Udatsu sits at #122 in Tokyo with a the 3.70 current Tabelog rating, which feels just about fair. Tabelog is certainly not the be-all and end-all, and itās often misunderstood for a couple of reasons (the distribution, the weighting, who reviewed it, new vs. more established restaurants, etc.)ā¦but generally, for established shops like these, i think it kind of gets it right (within 0.20-0.25 or so). i believe there are probably a good couple of dozen right around Udatsuās level in terms of quality, but Udatsuās angle is a little bit of creativity and pleasant atmosphere.
of course, thereās maybe little qualitative difference between say, #70 and #125, #122 and #150, or even #30 and the top 10. there are simply a lot of sushi restaurants and their scores are dynamic and depend on so many factors. but I would argue that there are a couple of tiers of higher highs than Udatsu purely in terms of food just on what Iāve experienced, even if thatās kind of irrelevant for our purposes in LA.
with that said,
i would respectfully disagree, but maybe iām splitting hairs. āthe top 100ā not being that well defined of course, but even so, iād generally argue that there are probably different tiers apart from styles within that. among the ātop 30ish,ā sure, with a couple of outliers, but 100 feels a little broad to me!
and in my opinion, the major difference between LA and Tokyo is a little more than just ingredient sourcing. i would argue that some of the ingredients you can be served here in LA - maguro and uni, in particular, perhaps what you might get at SGO when they splurge at auction - are quite comparable to what you would find in Japan, apart perhaps from some real special cases. wasabi, whitefish, and clams show the biggest ingredient difference to me. but even apart from the neta or the wasabi, the most impressive shops to me in Japan can operate on another level for various reasons. LA certainly leveled up ~2014-ish, and the gap is narrowing a bit, but to me there are discernible differences at the most impressive experiences in Tokyo beyond the ingredients.
anyway, i donāt mean to come across as too negative - Iām glad that Udatsu expanded to LA and thereās another high-end choice to try. i will get around to trying it eventually! maybe LAās Udatsu is even better than the Tokyo OG one, weāll see.
i generally agree
SGO is generally more high end abroad than it is in Tokyo. theyāre big in overseas expansion mode and despite what some may think about their parent organizationās variety, they do buy very premium ingredients. theyāve rotated chefs a bunch and YMMV across different branches, but to me, the best experience iāve had was in Honolulu with Shinsuke-san (who has since moved to open Sushi Shinsuke in Tokyo). and Michelin imo is not a very reliable guide for sushi, especially when comparing across countries, but i digress.
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Loving the knowledge
Interested to hear what those various reasons and differences might be?
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@pomodoro any time I can elicit an in-depth reply from you, Iām stoked.
At this point Iām looking for like a 100 page guide to where to eat in Japan, lol. Iād read every word!
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Thanks, but Iām not quite sure that this thread is the most appropriate to give a detailed take on what are just my thoughts and observations in comparison. LA certainly has a wide swath of good and enjoyable sushi, no doubt. I havenāt tried everywhere great in LA (not yet Udatsu LA) or Tokyo of course. I was just reacting to the idea that sourcing is the major difference, when in fact some sourcing in LA can be quite high end (see SGOās Oma tuna, mayoi katsuo, high end uni, etc.) and reflecting on my favorite shops/experiences in Japan when the chefs are really dialed in.
I do agree that sourcing can explain some - perhaps a minor point, but the wasabi has tended to be at a noticeably different level, even if itās all mazuma variety - quality and treatment. I suspect that partly comes down to purchasing decisions re: demand, or maybe practical considerations (not everything is sold at the markets to all, some are by connection) or preferences, but i can recount several servings for example where the wasabiās quality was integral to how the dish was proportioned. The finer points end up maybe sounding a bit elitist, and I donāt mean to come off as condescending to LA. I get the sense that discussing details of how good specific sushi is in Japan might come off as a little bit negative, when ultimately Iām glad thereās a welcome expansion of a Tokyo sushiya to LA and Iām excited for LAās sushi scene as it continues to evolve.
too kind, thanks. iām back in a few weeks so iāll update.
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Appreciated. And if youāve got any last minute recs for me, Iāll gladly take them. Will be in Tokyo for four nights in mid Feb!
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Hello? Youāre on FTC. This is, like, the perfect place to note differences in food!
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All I meant by sourcing was the fact that itās unfortunately illegal to import certain shellfish to here, but more notably, the chefs there can get micro seasonal fish with different fat contents, all properly caught and killed using the ikejime method, etc. I guess the chefs in LA can also buy those, but I canāt imagine it would be profitable if youāre sourcing the best and highest quality ingredients for every single course and dish directly from Japan and then shipping it here.
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