Los Angeles: How To Order An Entire Box Of Uni And Make Your Tablemates Jealous
Last week we introduced you to the eight sushi masters of Los Angeles, the high-to-stratospheric end sushi counters the city has become famous for over the past decade. And while a reservation at any of those spots is well worth a month's rent, I found myself at one of Little Tokyo's stellar second-tier options. Visiting from my home in sushi-crazed New York City, it was completely enlightening.
Chef Toshiaki Toyoshima opened Sushi Gen in Little Tokyo Plaza in 1981 and it has grown into a perpetually busy lunch and dinner go-to. The operation is also rumored to sell raw fish to many of the city's more workmanlike restaurants and grocery stores, acting as a broker of sorts. Toyoshima is a legend in the Southern California-to-Japan fish trade, which allows him to serve high-quality fish at cut-rate prices.
Case in point? Sushi Gen's uni special, which I was tipped off to from a Japanophile friend — who had never personally never ordered the dish, instead opting for the well-priced $27 sashimi combo. But man was I happy to order the uni dinner, which consisted of an entire box of uni. Not a lobe or a smear. An entire box, straight from the docks. For a quick recap, uni is the reproductive organ of sea urchin and treasured in culinary circles from the Mediterranean to East Asia. While the uni collected off the coast of Japan is most prized, the United States has a formidable sea urchin presence in the Channel Islands, 22 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara.
While I am unsure where my box of sea urchin came from, the quality was way above-par. Though not the ice cream of the sea nirvana from places like Masa or Sasabune, it was still a very good product — and man there was a lot of it. The dinner also included five pieces of sashimi (yellowtail, tuna), chopped tuna for D.I.Y. hand rolls, a delightful piece of egg sushi and a bowl of very good rice. $100? No. $68? No. $37. That's the number. Basically everybody at the table was pretty much jealous.
Also see: 9 Great Dishes In Little Tokyo In Los Angeles
Sushi Gen
422 East 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012