yes, unfortunately!
fair enough, though some chefs have been pretty generous / probably slim on margins at times here in California - Kaneyoshi served us donchichi aji, SGO served mayoi gatsuo and sunazuri of Oma honmaguro, high end Hadate uni, there’s lots of well-sourced and prized neta at Yoshizumi, etc. so in my personal experience, I believe it goes beyond just the neta quality. but YMMV and happy to respectfully agree to disagree on this!
Not disagreeing with you, but genuinely curious as to what the “beyond” is for you.
We went again. High-level thoughts:
Everything at Udatsu tastes basically right to my tastes. Good salt level, balanced flavors on a bite-by-bite basis. Very tasty. But not the perfection that you see at the very top places; never a feeling like “ika can’t get much better than this.” Good creativity though.
The overall meal is skewed toward heavy / fatty flavors. Given all I’ve read about Omega 3s, that might be a health positive. But I would enjoy more shiromi and clams. I find the menu unbalanced.
I’m annoyed by the fact that they seat you 30 minutes after your reservation time and make you wait in a bar. If they want to start with the bar first, then they should have free welcome drinks and first bites in the bar. It shouldn’t be a way to upsell drinks to customers because they’re bored.
Overall, I would rank Udatsu around #8-10 best sushi bar in the greater LA area.
p.s.: I asked ChatGPT to give me chefs’ thoughts about various fishes as they were served. Some examples are below.
just go 30 minutes later .
ha ha ha
Yes that’s the plan next time.
Sorry to say, 15 minutes past opening is a good plan for most sushi restaurants.
