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Archive for Japan

Cheesy Pork Cutlet

Jan20

Restaurant: Kimukatsu

Location: 2121 Sawtelle Blvd, Los Angels, CA 90025. 310-477-1129

Date: January 13 and October 20, 2014

Cuisine: Japanese Pork Cutlet

Rating: Tasty fry

_

One of the first things I noticed spending a lot of time in Japan was that restaurants specialized. I mean, really specialized. Some served sushi. Some served BBQ eel. Some tempura. Some Udon. And, of course, some served Tonkatsu, or deep fried pork cutlet. This is traditional accompanied by cabbage and its own special sauce.





The menu.


Condiments like sauces and salad dressing.


Unlimited cabbage and a tangy vinaigrette, surprisingly tasty (plus, traditional).

IMG_5688
Taco Yaki. Translates more or less as “Octopus fried yummy”. This was literally the first food I had in Japan. Fresh off the plane 25 years ago I got some on the street — and burned my mouth badly with the 212 degree temp. This wasn’t as hot, but it tasted pretty much the same!


Red miso soup.


Rice in a cute little bucket.


Traditional Japanese pickles, which you eat with the rice. I love these guys actually.


The cute little pork cutlet. Check out that fuzzy fry.

I ordered the “cheesy cutlet”. Layers of folded pork with a bit of cheesy goodness in the center. The meat is unusually folded, and therefore lighter and fluffier. I’ve had this a bunch in Japan and it’s generally much denser and more chewy.


Here is a bit with the tangy (tamarind based?) tonkatsu sauce, which cuts the fat.


Curry Tonkatsu. The fried pork cutlet is on rice, but surrounded by an island of rich Japanese curry and accompanied by crunchy pickles and miso soup. This was one of the best curry rices I’ve had not only was the cutlet fabulous, but the curry was perfectly done and smooth and the pickles extra lovely.


Yuzu sorbet hit the spot — and it was free with a Facebook like, certainly no hardship.

This is a nice little spot, focused, as is typical in Japan, but certainly serving up top flight Tonkatsu in a way both traditional and souped up.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Thanksgiving – Pork Insanity
  2. Food as Art: Sushi House Unico
  3. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
  4. Takao Two
  5. Takao Top Omakase
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Cutlet, Japan, Japanese cuisine, Miso soup, Sawtelle Boulevard, Tonkatsu, Worcestershire sauce

PS2 Memory Lane

Apr25

I was recently asked a couple of questions about the early days of Playstation 2 development…

My first dev unit looked more or less like this

My first dev unit looked more or less like this

Can you remember your first reaction when you saw the PS2 for the first time?

My first PS2 glimpse was hardly typical. In the spring of 1999, I had to go down to LAX and claim my prototype unit. It was one of the first to leave Japan (a few weeks earlier we had sent an employee to Tokyo to get one and he’d been turned back at the airport because the customs people thought it might be a weapons computer!). It took several hours of walking paperwork around freight offices behind the airport to claim my prize. When I did, I dug through the giant crate of peanuts to uncover a handmade aluminum cube about 18 inches square, filled with wire wrapped circuit boards. It smelled like ozone. The shell was a bit bent in transit and I was terrified it wouldn’t work. But it did.

What most impressed you technically when you started to work with PS2?

At first, the thing was a beast. Well, later it was still a beast. But what was really impressive once you got into it was how much floating point vector math you could do on the vector units if you took the time to program them. This was HARD. Seriously HARD, but the things worked all from on chip memory and were ridiculously powerful for the time.

Did you notice any wider changes to gaming, culturally for example, as a result of the PS2’s impact?

The PS2 had sufficient horsepower to make games look fairly realistic. You could actually put motion captured human models in a game and have them look okay. On the PS1, this was hopeless. Take a look at how blocky Lara Croft was back in the day and you’ll see what I mean. The ability to have human characters drove the whole style of games in a much more realistic and film-like direction. Before that, games were much more cartoon in style.

The more official dev unit that came many months later

The more official dev unit that came many months later

What one, stand-out factor do you think helped PS2 become so successful?

It was small. It played DVDs. The price was reasonable, and the games rocked.

What do you think was PS2’s most technically accomplished or innovative game and why?

I’d say that the Jak & Daxter games were certainly among the most technically accomplished. Our engine was really customized for the machine, and it was a machine that really rewarded custom design. The architecture wasn’t like anything else. But we were evolutionary in game design and there were certainly games that innovated more in genre. The PS2’s middle and late periods brought some really innovative and creative games like Katamari Damacy, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and Okami.

What do you think will be PS2’s lasting legacy?

I think the Playstation in general, and the PS2 in particular, really brought video games out of the Mario/Zelda kiddie style and into direct parity with the other broad entertainment mediums like film. The stylistic line between an effects laden blockbuster and a big video game is very thin. There’s even been a lot of back-flow as video game sensibilities push into other mediums.

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Related posts:

  1. Jak & Daxter Q&A
  2. Crash goes to Japan – part 1
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 1
  4. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 2
  5. Game of Thrones – Season 3 Goodies
By: agavin
Comments (320)
Posted in: Games
Tagged as: Jak & Daxter, Japan, Katamari Damacy, Playstation, PlayStation 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Sony, Video game

Sugarfish – Sushi by the Numbers

Aug27

Restaurant: Sugarfish

Location: 11640 W. San Vicente Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90049. Phone: 310 820-4477

Date: August 13, 2012

Cuisine: Sushi

Rating: Fish is good, format is annoying

_

My relationship with sushi goes way back. My parents first took me to Washington DC’s (then) single Japanese restaurant, Mikado, in the 70s and I started on sushi by eight years old. In the 80s I constantly evangelized sushi. To people’s unanimous response of “yuck, raw fish?” I’d respond, “but it’s SO good.”

Fast forward to 1994 and my move to California. Sushi was just going mainstream and I was an experienced devotee. I’d been to Japan, I knew the names of most fish in Japanese, I’d had a sushi poster over my bed since high school. Still, Sushi Nozawa, conveniently located just 5-10 minutes from Universal Studios (where we were then making Crash Bandicoot), was hands down the best I’d ever had. There were a couple funny things about it:

1. The rice was warm and fell apart easily

2. There was often vinegar like sauce on the fish (which was really good)

3. The seafood itself was incredibly fresh and not fishy at all

4. Chef Nozawa, who made everything personally at the tiny sushi bar, enforced all sorts of rules in a Seinfeld “soup nazi” like manner. No cel phones. No mentioning California or Spicy Tuna roll, no asking for anything. Just “trust me” he said.

All and all an amazing experience.

Fast forward again 10+ years and I’d long been dining happily at what Nozawa spawn restaurants: Echigo, Sasabune, Sushi Zo, and the like. These chefs trained with the master, and deliver fantastic sushi in his format (sometimes including cel phone and roll rules — although at Sasabune I have twice seen Brett Ratner pacing back and forth between customers with his iphone/blackberry glued to his ear).

Then we have Sugarfish, Nozawa’s direct progeny. It’s a problem child for me, mostly because of the format: It’s a chain (albeit a small one) and the chef is missing. Any chef. There is still a vestigial sushi bar, but there are no knife-wielding Japanese guys in white hats behind calling out as you enter or leave. Instead you order packages of “trust me” off a short men and caucasians bring it to you. This seems… unclean… improper.

The Sugarfish menu (see here: Lunch Menu) feels like a packaged corporate imitation of the whole experience. Converting what is essentially a handmade and human relationship (diner and chef) into a by the numbers formula. And besides, even “The Nozawa,” the largest package, is like a snack for someone like me used to gigantic omakases (sample some on my sushi page)!

But here it is:


I’ve never been a huge edaname fan. These are fine, but the oil gets all over your hands.


“Tuna sashimi.” The fish is good, but the whole thing is dominated by the sweet vinegar sauce. Not that I mind, as I love sweet vinegar sauce.


“Albacore sushi.” Tasty enough, and melt in your mouth.


“Salmon sushi.” Good enough fish, but blander than some.


“Yellowtail sushi.” Also nice pieces of Hamachi. Nothing wrong with it, but like almost everything else on this menu, a bit boring.


“Halibut sushi.” Also nice fish.


“Toro hand roll.” Felt a tad bland for some reason.


“Blue crab hand roll.” This was tasty, and the crab hand roll was always a highlight at Nozawa, but this felt like an 80% imitation, perhaps not sweet and crabby enough.


“Halibut fin sashimi.” Bizarrely served at the end. By normal Japanese standards this should have come before any rice. Still, it was a fine dish, again amped up by the vinegar sauce.

Overall, Sugarfish has good fish. Not great fish, but the typical good fish that is now widely available in LA. But the whole thing is so watered down, a packaged imitation of the real sushi experience aimed at dabblers. The room was filled with women catching lunch. They like sushi, may even recognize that better places are tastier, but they aren’t committed to the experience. Unless I’m in a real hurry, I’ll take a human chef who can recommend what is fresh or make me something I haven’t tried before. Nozawa once said to me, “today I have seven types of fish and every day, I ask myself, can I do seven fish well? Should I perhaps do only six?” This espouses the very Japanese sentiment that any small thing can be done exceedingly well with enough focus and concentration. That doesn’t seem to dive with corporate packaging.

For more sushi reviews, click here.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Echigo Sushi
  2. Sushi Zo
  3. Sushi Sushi – Small Omakase
  4. Takao Sushi Taking Off!
  5. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Brentwood, California, Japan, Japanese cuisine, Los Angeles, Nozawa, Sugarfish, Sushi, Sushi Nozawa, Universal Studios

N/Naka – Farewell to Foie

Jul01

Restaurant: N/Naka [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Location: 3455 S. Overland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90034. 310.836.6252

Date: June 22, 2012

Cuisine: Modern Kaiseki

Rating: Awesome

ANY CHARACTER HERE

It’s been an N/Naka couple of weeks. I was just there three weeks ago for an amazing Omakase. Now the Foodie Club returns for the “Farewell to Foie” dinner. For those of you that live in caves, California is on the verge of banning that most delectable of duck livers due to debatable animal rights issues. Chef Ms. Niki Nakayama has whipped up an entirely foie meal to celebrate the last month of foie!


The setting is elegant, minimalist, and very Japanese.


From my cellar: “The Pinson 2008 Chablis Les Clos displays somewhat detached lanolin, resin, and vanilla from barrel, but also generous citrus tinged with chalk dust and white pepper typical for this site. With a sense of substantiality shared with other wines in its collection as well as a silken texture – yet with plenty of energy and saliva-inducement.” This wine is textbook white burgundy and Chardonnay at its best, flowery and rich in a way that new world Chards almost never achieve. But, as I was to observe, Chardonnay makes a really poor pairing with foie gras. The richness of the foie begs for something sweet like a Riesling Spatlese.


Saki Zuke (A pairing of something common and something unique) – Custard of Organic Farm-fresh Jidori Chicken Egg and Hudson Valley Foie Gras topped with Seared Foie Gras on a Bed of Shredded Foie Gras, a Sauce of Balsamic Foie Gras Jus and a Flower of Pansy, Gold Leaf.


“Zensai (Main seasonal ingrediant presented as an appetizer) – Torchon of Hudson Valley Foie Gras served with Seared Unagi (Freshwater Eel), Brûléed Black Mission Figs, Roasted Bing Cherries, a Sweep of Bittersweet Chocolate and a Sauce of Cabernet Sauvignon and Bing Cherries and Gelée of Sanbaizu.”


“Modern Zakuri (A modern interpretation of sashimi) – Hokkaido scallops with Hudson Valley Foie Gras Crumbles, Shaved Zest of Fresh Yuzu, garnished with leaves of Baby Red-veined Sorrel from Niki’s Garden and Sprouts of Daikon and Drops of Ponzu Reduction.”


“Otsukuri (Traditional Sashimi) – Live Hirame (Halibut) from Jeju, Korea, thinly sliced with a Flower of Pansy from Niki’s Garden and a Sauce of Foie Gras Ponzu.” The foie in the ponzu added a lovely touch of richness to this otherwise simple sashimi.


“Palate Cleanser – On the Half Shelll, Kumamoto Oyster with Fresh Uni (Sea Urchiin) from Santa Barbara with Ponzu.”


The 2000 Domaine Ponsot Chapelle Chambertin Grand Cru was a spectacular example of grand cru red Burgundy brought by Foodie co-chair EP. Every time I taste a very good burgundy with a little age on it I remember why I love burgs so much. Just spectacular.


“Mushimono (Steamed dish) – Black Abalone from Monterey and Hudson Valley Foie Gras poached in Dashi and served with the Poaching Liquid and Scallions.” This sure is a lot of foie!  The combination was incredible, and the broth even better. Notice that the bowl has a little “spigot” on the right for pouring it out onto a spoon. I spilled some and debated licking it off the table — not kidding.


“Shiizakana (Not bound by tradition, the Chef’s choice dish) – Ravioli stuffed with Diver Scallops from Hokkaido, Japan, Maine Lobster Tail and Hudson Valley Foie Gras with a Sauce of Yuzu Brown Butter.” Absolutely to die for ravioli with a dough much like that of a Har Gow.


“Niku (Meat Course) – Beef Houbayaki – American Wagyu Beef Ribeye Steak topped with Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras, Scallions on a Sauce of Sweet Red Miso, on a Magnolia Leaf that sits on top of Charcoal.” Rich enough? Wagyu AND foie?


The Magnolia leaf creates a wonderful odor as it smokes too.


For the sushi flights we ordered this ultra premium sake. I’ve had both this semi-sweet version and the same maker’s dry. The semi-sweet is worlds better in my opinion, perhaps the best sake I’ve ever had.

“Palate Cleanser – some marinated fish bit with tomato from Niki’s garden.”


“Shokuji One & Two (Rice dish –Sushi) – Tai (Japanese Snapper), Chu-toro of Big Eye Tuna”


“Aji (Spanish Mackrel), Amaebi (Sweet Shrimp)”


“Seared Toro of Spanish Baby Blue Fin Tuna, Seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras topped with a Balsamic Foie Gras Jus Reduction.”


“Shiizakana 2 – Risotto of Unagi (Freshwater Ell) with Unagi Sauce and topped seared Hudson Valley Foie Gras.” Another incredible dish, although just loaded with foie. I love rice with Unagi sauce all by itself and the foie drippings made it 10x better!


“Soba – Buckwheat Noodles in Traditional Soba Broth with Scallions and Jus of Foie Gras.”


“Salmon and seared American Wagyu.” Beef sushi!


“Additional Shokuji/Additional Shokuji/Ochazuke (Rice Dish) – a porridge of .fish, rice, and green tea.” Very mild, pleasant, and settling after all that foie.

“Palate Cleanser – Sorbet of Yuzu”

“Dessert – Crème Brûlée of Black Sesame Seed.” Rich and creamy.

Artisan Hojicha tea.

N/Naka really is a very special place. All the meals I had here were spectacular (here for the first, here for the second, here for the third). But this last was just crazy out of this world. I was actually a little worried before hand that it would be too much foie (like our crazy 27 course truffle dinner), but despite the length (6 hours!), and the insane amount of foie it was actually manageable. And beyond all that, Chef Niki managed to actually enhance every single dish with all that richness. Foie isn’t a typical Japanese ingredient, but it didn’t throw any dish for a loop. Most were extremely memorable and all were fantastic.

Click here to other LA Japanese restaurants.

Or other Foodie Club extravaganzas.

Related posts:

  1. N/Naka Reprise
  2. Food as Art – N/Naka
  3. Knocked out by N/Naka
  4. Matsuhisa – The Private Room
  5. Food as Art – Nobu
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Black Abalone, California, Dashi, Foie gras, Foodie Club, Hokkaido, Hudson Valley, Hudson Valley Foie Gras, Japan, Japanese cuisine, N/Naka, Niki Nakayama, Omakase, Restaurant

Crash goes to Japan – part 1

Jan11

It’s probably hard for younger gamers to recognize the position in gaming that Japan occupied from the mid eighties to the late 90s. First of all, after video games rose like a phoenix from the “great crash of ’82” (in which the classic coin-op and Atari dominated home market imploded), all major video game machines were from Japan until the arrival of the Xbox. Things were dominated by Nintendo, Sega, Nintendo, Sony, Nintendo, Sony… you get the picture.

And in the days before the home market eclipsed and destroyed the arcade, Japan completely crushed everyone else. Only the occasional US hit like Mortal Kombat even registered on the radar.

Miyamoto, creator of Mario, playing Crash 1. I’m standing behind him off frame

All of this, not to mention the cool samurai/anime culture and ridiculously yummy food (see my sushi index!), made us American video game creators pretty much all Miyamoto groupies.

But on the flip side, American games, if they even made it to the land of the rising sun at all, almost always flopped.

Japanese taste is different the wisdom went. Special. Foreign games even had a special name over there (which I have no idea how to spell). These “lesser” titles were stocked in a seedy back corner of your typical Japanese game store, near the oddball porn games.

So it was with great enthusiasm and limited expectations that we approached the mutual Naughty Dog, Mark Cerny, and Sony decision that we were going to take  the Japanese market really seriously with Crash. Sony assigned two brilliant and dedicated producers to us: Shuhei Yoshida and his then assistant Shimizu (aka Tsurumi-0600). They sat in on every major planning meeting and we scheduled the whole fall for me to localize the game in exacting detail (while we were simultaneously beginning work on Crash 2!).

For the most part, Yoshida-san made things happen and Shimizu, who has literally played like every video game ever made and read like every manga, worked the details. I (with a bunch of help from the artists) had to put in the changes.

Yoshida-san front and center, Shimizu on the far left, Rio (joined the team during Crash 2) on the far right

Somehow Yoshida-san was able to maneuver the game into being not one of those funny foreign games, but an official bona fide release of Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. the first party Japanese studio. And it was to be sold and marketed pretty much like it had been made in Japan! Wow!

So to pull off this cultural masquerade Jason and I decided that Shu (as Yoshida-san was affectionately known) and Shimizu got pretty much whatever they wanted. They after all, knew the mysterious Japanese market. Which turned out to be pretty darn true. And, besides, both are really really smart and crazy hard workers (Shimizu is famous for sleeping under his desk) and so we all got along famously.

The gameplay itself wasn’t really too much of an issue. Shimizu did help us smooth out some sections and make them easier (often by adding extra continue points − opposite of Europe). But there were a lot of other changes.

The Crash 1 main titles, in Japanese

First of all, we had to translate the text. Some of this wasn’t so bad. But the main logo was a 3D object and Jason had to painstakingly create a version of the paper design the Japanese provided us — which required lots of checking from Shimizu as he doesn’t speak Japanese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4XzmZyiIXA

Above is the opening in Japanese.

And things got even harder (for me) with the in game text. The Playstation didn’t have a lot of video memory and we were using a medium resolution 512 pixel wide mode anyway. What little there was, we had pretty much consumed. But the Japanese language has four alphabets! One is Latin, two are similar but different looking phonetic alphabets, and the last is the giant Kanji pictographic database. Kanji would’ve been impossible, but we needed to cram the two extra phonetic sets in. Plus the characters are more intricate than the Latin alphabet and need more pixels. I can’t remember what I did to squeeze them in, but I do remember it was painful. One part I do recall was implementing the sets of letters that vary only by an extra dot or ” mark by drawing them with two sprites (hence saving video ram).

Once the font was installed we had to input the crazy looking “shift JIS” text. One of the problems in those days was that the text editors all 8-bit, unlike today were 16-bit typesets dominate. And with a European language you can usually tell if a line of text had gotten swapped or mangled, but in Japanese… and even worse, in shift JIS it just looks like a bunch of garbage characters.

So again, Shimizu had to check everything. A lot.

Our opening and closing cut scene dialog was recorded in Japanese using very high profile Japanese actors (so they told me). We replaced those audio files (using one of my automated systems of course!). There were also a good number of cases throughout the game where we had placed text in textures. The configuration screens, loading screens, load/save screens and all sorts of other ones. These all needed new versions. We collected all of these textures, shipped them out to Japan and got back Shimizu certified versions in exactly the same sizes with the Japanese text. I used and upgraded the system that I had built for the European version so that any file (texture, audio, etc) in the game could be “replaced” by a file of the same name in the same directory with a .J on the end (or a .S, .E, .F, .G, .I for various European permutations). The level packaging tool would automatically suck up the most appropriate version and shove it in the J versions of the levels. I’m not sure we left ANYTHING untranslated. Even Japanese games usually had more Engrish. Achem, English. I so remember a Castlevania with “Dlacura’s grave.”

Then the Japanese came up with this idea of having Aku Aku explain various gameplay mechanics to you when you break his boxes, much like the raspberry boxes in Super Mario World. This was a great idea, except it meant that the game was suddenly filled with about 200 extra paragraphs of text. Undecipherable text. I had to squeeze that into the levels too. More problematic was the seemingly simple fact that when a big block of text comes up on the screen the game effectively needs to pause so the player can read it. You can’t just “hit pause” but need a separate state. This simple feature caused a lot of bugs. A lot. But we stomped them out eventually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WojXNCbHOmY&feature=related

Above you can see a walk through of the first level. A lot of the PITA localization work was in the save screens (big fun: character entry screen in three Japanese alphabets) and the various statistic screens at the end of the level. I think the Japanese allowed us to do away with the horrible password system and use memory card only.

The Japanese box and CD with its very strange Crash and Eve painting — it was nice and colorful

The Japanese also had some famous actor record a whole collection of really zany sounding grunts and noises that Crash was to make. Shimizu lovingly crafted long lists of extremely specific places in the game where exactly such and such exclamation was to be uttered. He was never one to spare either of us from a great deal of work 🙂 But his willingness to tackle any task himself, no matter how tedious, made him hard to refuse. I also had to squeeze all these extra samples into the extremely tight sound memory, mostly by downgrading the bit-rate on other sounds. This caused Mike Gollom, our awesome sound design contractor to groan and moan. “3.5k is pure butchery” he’d complain. I found this SGI tool that used a really advanced new algorithm to downgrade the sounds, they sounded twice as good at any given bit-rate than the Sony tool.

Anyway the really funny bit about these Crash sounds was the subjective feel they left us Americans with. Strange! They made Crash sound like a constipated old man. But the Japanese insisted they were perfect. I guess they were right because the game sold like crazy over there.

Another weird audio difference was that five of the songs were swapped out for new ones. Josh Mancell the composer put it this way:

An 11th hour decision made by the Sony people in Japan. They felt that the boss rounds needed to sound more ‘video game-like’. The only reference they gave was music from the Main Street Electrical Parade at Disneyland. I only had a day or so to write all those themes. My favorite comment was about the original Tawna bonus round music. It roughly translated into ‘the sound of the guitar mixed with the tree imagery is too nostalgic-sounding’. I’m still scratching my head on that one.

You can find the different tracks here.

There were also a host of minor but strange modifications we needed to make. One was that a few characters originally had four fingers, which is typical of most American cartoon characters. Apparently the Japanese have a more than usual dislike of disfigured humanoids. Fingers were added (to make them the normal five). There were a whole bunch of little visual, audio, and gameplay changes Shimizu had us make to the game. Most of these I felt were neutral, different but not really better or worse, so I just trusted him and put them in. Occasionally if they were a really pain I pushed back.

Eventually, right around Thanksgiving, just in time for Jason and I to head to Japan to promote it, the Japanese version was ready!

Coming soon, I plan on a part 2 covering Japanese marketing and promotions!

If you didn’t catch it, I have a similar detailed post in the European localization of Crash.

If you liked this post, follow me at:

My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed
or the
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or win Crash & Jak giveaways!

Latest hot post: War Stories: Crash Bandicoot

Cover of the hint guide in Japan

Related posts:

  1. Crash Bandicoot – An Outsider’s Perspective (part 8)
  2. Parlez vous Crash
  3. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 5
  4. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 1
  5. Making Crash Bandicoot – part 2
By: agavin
Comments (142)
Posted in: Games
Tagged as: Atari, Crash Bandicoot, Japan, Japanese Localization, Mark Cerny, Mortal Kombat, Naughty Dog, Nintendo, pt_crash_history, Sega, Shimizu, Shuhei Yoshida, Sony, Sony Computer Entertainment, Super Mario World, Video game, Xbox

Echigo Sushi

Oct28

Restaurant: Echigo

Location: 12217 Santa Monica Blvd. Suite 201. Los Angeles, CA 90025. (310) 820-9787

Date: October 27, 2011

Cuisine: Japanese Sushi

Rating: Very good warm-rice style sushi

_

Back when my office was at the Watergarden in Santa Monica Echigo was one of my regular lunch haunts. The chef studied under Nozawa and is stylistically related to nearby Sasabune. They both follow the “warm rice” school of sushi (which I believe originates in Osaka prefecture. The rice is warmer and less sticky than Tokyo-style sushi. It tastes really good this way, but has some tendency to fall apart on the way to the mouth.


The lunch menu has two choices, the lunch special for $14 and the omakase. Below is the union (both) of each. The lunch special is by far the best deal (6-7 years ago it was even $9!).


Fresh ground wasabi and pickled ginger. These photos were taken on the iPhone 4S which does pretty well in good light. A few missed photos were purloined from the web.


Skipjack tuna with a bit of sauce.


Medium (chu) toro.


Hamachi (yellowtail).


Halibut, which itself doesn’t have much flavor, but the vinegary sauce does.


Tai (red snapper).


Scallop. One of my favorites.


Salmon with a bit of kelp and sesame.


Bonito, also delicious.


Albacore.


Kanpachi (young yellowtail). With a bright vinegary sauce.


Ono.


Shimaji (stripped jack).


Butterfish. This is an Echigo specialty. A firm fish with miso based sauce.


Uni (sea urchin).


And the now classic Nozawa blue crab hand roll (I ate two and could have had more).

Echigo is a hair below a few of the very top lunch LA sushi places (Sushi Sushi, Mori, Go, Kiriko etc), but it offers pretty good relative value, and on the absolute scale top sushi, far above the generic touristy sushi joint. Getting the Omakase at dinner at the sushi bar is an even higher caliber experience.

For more LA area sushi, see here.

For more LA dining reviews click here.

Related posts:

  1. Sushi Zo
  2. Takao Sushi Taking Off!
  3. Sushi Sushi = Yummy Yummy
  4. Mori Sushi – A Top Contender
  5. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Alaskan king crab fishing, Asian, California, Echigo, Echigo Sushi, Hamachi, Japan, Japanese cuisine, Los Angeles, Omakase, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Rice, Salmon, Sushi, Tokyo

Food as Art – N/Naka

Jul29

Restaurant: N/Naka [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Location: 3455 S. Overland Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90034. 310.836.6252

Date: July 22, 2011

Cuisine: Modern Kaiseki

Rating: Awesome

_

N/Naka opened only three months ago. It’s the brainchild of chef/owner Niki Nakayama and is a rare entry (along with Urwasawa) in the Kaiseki category of Japanese. This is a traditional style of extended meal of small highly ornate dishes that is simultaneously traditional and modern. Originally it was a form of Imperial cuisine from Kyoto, but in the hands of Nakayama it’s received a bit of a modernist twist ala infusions of ideas and techniques from Ferran Adrià, the Spanish genius responsible for many modernist trends in cooking.


The unassuming frontage is on Overland just south of the 10 freeway.

Inside is minimalist, Japanese inspired, and very attractive.

Small attractive details are very Japanese.

Be warned, this restaurant has no ala carte menu at all (yay!). There are three options. A 10-13 course Modern Kaiseki, a nine course smaller Kaiseki (still long), and a ten course Vegetarian Tasting. All three options can be coupled with wine pairings. Below I will present the long Modern Kaiseki and the Vegetarian.

Modern Kaiseki (w/ wine pairings)


Graham beck sparkling, south africa. A nice dry champagne style pinot.

Saki Zuke

(A pairing of something common and something unique)

Cauliflower tofu, marinated salmon roe, uni butter, micro greens.

A wonderful blend of textures and flavors. The tufo was soft and gelatinous, the uni is… well uni-like, and the bits of Ikura (salmon roe) burst in the mouth as little flavor morsels. Delicious.


2008 — brooks riesling, williamette valley, oregon.

Zensai

(Main seasonal ingredient presented as an appetizer)

Soft shell crab, avocado sphere, scallop “dynamite”

Seared bluefin toro avocado rice, miso marinated black cod


Soft shell crab, avocado sphere, red pepper sorbet. The nicely friend crab and the sorbet played nicely off each other.


miso marinated black cod. Pretty much the Matsuhisa classic!


Seared bluefin toro avocado rice, caviar. Seared toro is always good, nice pairing.


scallop “dynamite.” This was pretty delicious. The soft, slightly chewy, bits of scallop played deliciously off the rich dynamite.


2009 — erbaluce di caluso, favar, piedmont, italy. Parker gives this 88 points. “The 2009 Erbaluce di Caluso is an unusual white that in many ways recalls Pinot vinified off the skins. Flowers, red berries and minerals come together nicely on a mid-weight yet generous frame. Clean, mineral notes reappear on the finish, giving the wine its sense of proportion. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2012.”

Modern zukuri

(modern interpretation of sashimi)

Tuna and escolar checkers, ponzu reduction, italian black truffles

A delicious blend of little sashimi cubes and a richer more European sauce, plus the truffles. Very nice.


2010-shesbro roussanne, carmel valley, ca.

Owan “Still Water”

Lobster “shinjo” mousseline, chef’s garden momotaro tomato broth

You break up that little lobster thing into the soup, and eat that way. The soup had a delicious and light tomato dill thing going on, and the lobster added just a touch of richness.


Sake-kimura junmai daiginjo, akita, japan. This was a spectacular sake, tasting strongly of anise. This is the kind of sake where they shave every rice kernel down before making it!

Otsukuri

(Traditional Sashimi )

Big eye otoro, shima aji , sea bream, santa barbara sweet shrimp,

Kumamoto oyster with uni

Some classic sashimi. The fish was all first rate, the wasabi hand ground.


Rw draft sake, suehiro syuzo, aizu japan. This was a fresher, younger sake.

Yakimono

Japan sazae butter yaki with maitake mushrooms

Japanese conch (like we had at Matsuhisa), but even more delicious as it was mixed with really yummy mushrooms and quail egg.


2007 — slumberger gewurstraminer prince abbes. Medium sweet.

Yakimono 2

Foie gras with eggplant, miso balsamic, shiitake mushroom

Double yum! Fois gras done up like BBQ eel (with some eggplant and mushroom).


2009 — elke chardonnay- anderson valley.

Shiizakana

(Not bound by tradition, the chef’s choice dish to be paired with wine)

Spaghetti with abalone, truffles, pickled cod roe, abalone liver sauce

This was a pretty amazing pasta dish, blending east and west. I’m not usually a huge abalone fan (although I have it often enough). It’s usually too chewy, but this wasn’t at all. There was a combined truffle and briny taste to this dish, not unlike a good spaghetti botarga, but also a truffle and butter/liver influenced richness.


2009 — evening land vineyards blue label pinot noir, eola amity hills, oregon. “Evening Land Vineyards is a group headed by movie magnate Mark Tarlov that also owns Pinot vineyards in the Sonoma Coast and Santa Rita Hills and is making wines in Burgundy. They gained control of one of the Willamette Valley’s prized properties, Seven Springs Vineyard, and created an immediate sensation by signing on Dominique Lafon of Comte Lafon in Burgundy as consulting winemaker. The Evening Land group is also making a major effort to restore the health and vitality of Seven Springs. The most recent development is the addition of renowned Master Sommelier Larry Stone as President and GM of the group in August 2010. Over the past 2-3 years there has been an awakening among some of the Willamette Valley’s most distinguished vignerons that their region is capable of producing world class Chardonnay. With Dominique Lafon and Larry Stone on board, there is no question that Evening Lands will be playing a starring role in this drama. There are now two serious Gamay producers in the Willamette Valley, Doug Tunnell of Brick House being the other.”

Niku

Snake river farms kobe beef kushiyaki skewers, baby corn

A small portion of yakaniku, ala Totoraku (see here). Delicious and rich. Not quite the beefy effect of the mega secret beef meal, but a nice note in this complex dinner.

Sunomono

Halibut fin ceviche

Yuzu omoi, yuzu blend sake

A tasty little intermezzo.


Sake- shichida, sago  japan. This apparently is an ultra-ultra rare sake.


In the glass. It was darn good. Darn good. So were all the sakes, but I liked this one and the first one the best.


Housemade ginger.


Some traditional sushi. Jeju island hirame, o-toro


yellow tail belly, shima aji


live scallops, uni shinkomaki. Overall the sushi was good, but not quite at the level of the very top dedicated sushi places. Still, it was very very good sushi.

Shokuji

(Rice dish)

sea trout and roe chazuke

It’s traditional to end the savories in Japan with a “rice dish.” On the left we have a very traditional bit of salmon like fish, rice, and nori. Refreshing and stomach settling.


On the right were two pickles cut roll pieces. I loved these. I’m a huge Japanese pickles fan and really enjoy the crunchy vinegar thing.

Dessert

Black sesame crème brulee, fruits

A very nice crème brulee with a soft sesame flavor.

There was also a dessert wine, a light medium sweet late harvest wine, but I forgot to get a photo of it.

Dessert

ice cream on cornbread

Tasted of corn, and ice cream — big surprise. Light and yummy.

Vegetarian Tasting

Saki Zuke

(A pairing of something common and something unique)

Cauliflower Tofu with Truffles

Zensai

(Main seasonal ingredient presented as an appetizer)

Chilled chef’s garden kabocha soup, braised wakame seaweed with shiitake

Lotus root “kinpira”, grilled eggplant, shiso tempura with tofu & avocado


grilled eggplant


braised wakame seaweed with shiitake


shiso tempura with tofu & avocado


Chilled chef’s garden kabocha soup


Lotus root “kinpira”

Modern Zukuri

(Modern interpretation of sashimi)

Compressed watermelon, cucumbers, baby yellow squash, baby zucchini, yuzu

Kimchee air

Otsukuri

 (Sashimi )

Arrowroot konyaku, whith konyaku, spinach, kabocha, baby taro

Nanohana ripini, carrots

Owan “Still Water”

Potatoe “shinjo”, chef’s garden momotaro tomato broth

Shiizakana

(Not bound by tradition, the chef’s choice dish)

Spaghetti wild mushrooms, truffles

Yakimono

Lotus root mochi, spinach teppanyaki


avocado, Sushi-eggplant & shiso


shiitake, grilled konyaku

Maitake roll, cucumber and plum

Shokuji

(Rice dish)

ocha zuke with wasabi nori

The desserts were the same as the Modern Kaiseki. Overall a pretty spectacular job of approximating the full range of proteins using only vegetable sources. Vegetarian (or otherwise protein restricted) foodies should delight in this.

I was extremely impressed with N/Naka, and you can bet I’ll be back soon. The food is highly elaborate and offers a full suite of flavors meticulously prepared. I very much enjoy even the fully traditional Kaiseki dinners, but this slightly modernist take was even better. Sometimes chefs with inferior pallets will introduce modernist techniques into traditional meals and create uncomfortable taste pairings. Niki Nakayama clearly has a very sure and confident palette, as I found every dish harmonious and balanced.

I just hope the somewhat adventurous and all-tasting format doesn’t make it difficult for the restaurant to thrive (and I wouldn’t change that at all for myself, but some might be intimidated). I have the feeling that the menu changes up frequently, and is very seasonal, and I hope that’s the case — because I’ll be back! (And I was, click here for a second meal)

Or here for other LA Japanese restaurants.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art – Sushi Sushi
  2. Food as Art – Takao
  3. Food as Art: Sushi House Unico
  4. Takao Two
  5. Food as Art: Pearl Dragon
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Avocado, Cook, Cooking, Dessert, Ferran Adrià, Food, food-as-art, Goichi Suda, Japan, Japanese cuisine, Kaiseki, Keiji Inafune, Kyoto, Los Angeles, Miso, Modern Kaiseki, N/Naka, Naka, Omakase, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, sake, Sashimi, Soft-shell crab, Sushi, Truffle (fungus), Wine, Yuji Naka

Takao Two

Mar20

Restaurant: Takao [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Location: 11656 San Vicente Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90049. (310) 207-8636

Date: March 13, 2011

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: 9/10 creative “new style” sushi

_

I’ve already covered Takao in some detail HERE, but we went back (we go often) and I built another “custom omakase” trying some different things. The full menu and some information on the history of the place can be found through the above link.

House cold sake. Masumi “Okuden-Kanzukuri” Nagano prefecture.

Miso soup. I think if you ask they have a couple different types. This is the basic scallion and tofu.

Big eye tuna sashimi. This displays the fish at it’s finest.

Wild Japanese Scallop sashimi. I love good scallops. These had that pleasant meaty texture, and the soft “scallopy” flavor.

Tai (red snapper), with garlic, salt, red peppercorn, onions, olive oil. A very bright flavor, and the peppercorns, not spicy at all, add a nice textural component.

Main lobster tempura (1/2). Takao has a lot of interesting tempuras. Uni (my second favorite), sardine, crab, unusual seafood pancake with shiso, and more. This is a decadent favorite of mine, and in a half portion is pretty reasonable.

Rock Shrimp Tempura Dynamite. The underlying component is in itself tasty. Sweet rock shrimp perfectly fried. Then you ad some dynamite with it’s zesty zing and it gets even better. For those not in the know Dynamite is a warm sauce consisting of mayo, sriarcha hot sauce, and masago semlt roe.

This is a very traditional Japanese egg custard with bits of mushroom, shrimp, and white fish baked inside. It has a very subtle mellow eggy flavor I find nostalgic from my many trips to Japan.

Just some of the sushi.

In the very front, Wild Japanese Scallop sushi. Behind that next to the wasabi is Tai (red snapper).

In the back, chu-toro (fatty tuna belly). Melts in your mouth!

Salmon of course.

Kanpachi (young yellow tail).

In the center, Ika (squid), perfect chewy pasty texture.

And fresh raw Tako (octopus). Most places serve it only frozen/cooked. This had a bit of yuzu on it, delicious.

On the left, Ikura (salmon eggs), and on the right Uni (Santa Barbara Sea Urchin). Both delicious.

Albacore with a bit of ginger and scallions.

Salmon tempura cut roll (technically for my two year old).

A bit more sushi. In the back grilled Unagi (fresh water eel) rolls, and Hamachi (yellowtail) and scallion rolls.

Kani (Alaskan king crab) sushi.

Tamago (sweet egg omelet) sushi.

And some vanilla mochi balls (ice cream covered with sweetened pounded rice). The red stuff is strawberry sauce.

Takao is top flight as always. I tend to enjoy ordering ala carte like this best, but it’s actually more expensive than getting an omakase, perhaps because I order a lot more sushi.

For my LA Sushi index, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art – Takao
  2. Sushi Sushi = Yummy Yummy
  3. Sasabune – Dueling Omakases
  4. Matsuhisa – Where it all started
  5. Food as Art: R.I.P. The Hump
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Black pepper, Dessert, Food, Hamachi, Japan, Japanese cuisine, Los Angeles, Restaurant, Restaurant Review, Sashimi, side dishes, Sushi, Takao, Tamago, Tuna, Uni, vegetarian, Yellowtail

Food as Art: Sushi House Unico

Nov13

Restaurant: Sushi House Unico (SHU)

Location: 2932 1/2 Beverly Glen Circle – Bel Air, Ca 90077 (310) 474-2740

Date: Nov 12, 2010

Cuisine: New Style Sushi

Rating: A great “Nobu” clone with some dishes of its own.

 

Nearly 15 years ago now when I first ate at Matsuhisa I was blown away. I was already a veteran Sushi eater, having started going to Washington D.C.s one (then two) places in the late 70’s, and having been to Japan 2 or 3 times at that point (now it’s around 20). At the time it seemed like a culinary breakthrough. Classic sushi was great, but here was a whole new cuisine based on “modernizing” and combining Japanese elements with some other sensibility. Fundamentally it seemed intensely creative. But nowadays half the restaurants in LA have Miso Cod or Yellowtail Sashimi with Jalapeno. In Food just as in any other art, creativity is surprisingly rare. SHU is very much derivative of this tradition, but unlike many of the places (Sushi Ryoku & Katsuya you know who you are!) does add a dash of its own style. Now we had read that SHU combined Japanese flavors with Italian. As a lover of both cuisines I didn’t really see this. It was more like a 95%/5% split in the Japanese favor. A few dishes had an occasional ingredient pulled from the Italian palette (like Olive Oil), but that was about it.

 

The menu, left half.

And right.  There is also a separate Sushi menu and a specials of the day menu.

“Edamame,” the usual. They just put it on the table, which some places do.

This is unfiltered Sake, served cold. It looks like the Japanese soda Pocari Milk. I liked it, smoother than many filtered Sakes, with a nice “rice” flavor.

“Miso Soup w/ Tofu & Green Onion,” the classic. Certainly well done, but I object to the presence of the spoon.

“Tuna Carpaccio. Thinly sliced Tuna w/ arugola, extra virgin Olive Oil, Yuzu & bottarga,” was very tasty, bright, soft, with a pronounced citrus zing and a good dose of black pepper. While it did have Olive Oil, I’d hardly call it Italian — but I liked it!

“Wild Yellowtail: Tomato Sashimi,” was nice. The sauce had a LOT of zing to it, very vinegary in a good way, with a little hint of spice afterwards.

“Heirloom tomato salad with Jalapenos, onion, cilantro and Jalapeno dressing.” I only tried the dressing, as I detest raw tomatoes (one of 2 foods I don’t like). My wife liked it, although it was a chopstick challenge. The dressing was on the side and I used it on some other dishes as it had a great, very bright citrus, vinegar, jalapeno tang.

“Salmon Carpaccio, thinly sliced Salmon, w/ capers, arugolo, extra virgin Olive oil, sea salt & lemon,” I didn’t try. In fact, I didn’t order, but it was so pretty I photoed it from the next table over.

“Crispy Risotto w/ Spicy Tuna Tartar & Sliced Jalapeno” was a very nice dish, but the Risotto name was a total misnomer. It’s the standard “friend crispy rice cake,” topped with spicy tuna. But it was very good, even though I’m not a spicy tuna fan. Spicy tuna is to Sushi as Spaghetti and Meatballs is to Italian.

“Broiled Miso Marinated Black Cod,” the Nobu classic and one of my wife’s favorites.

“Roch Shrimp Tempura w/ spicy creamy mayo” is another Nobu classic, but it was done just as well here.

Click the pic for a zoom. Starting left to right across the top:  Toro, Salmon, Albacore, Uni, Japanese Scallop, Eki (squid), Fresh Water Eel, and Tamago (Egg Omelet). The sushi was excellent. It was just a notch below what you get at Nobu, the late Hump (sob), or other extremely top LA places. So extremely yummy, but not totally sublime. Bear in mind that I am an extreme sushi snob with over 30 years of practice.

The unasked, but welcome fruit plate. I was too slow with the camera.

The trendy interior.

And exterior, right next to Vibrato Jazz Grill.

Overall, SHU was a very good place. It did the “classic” Nobu dishes well, and added enough originality to give it some flavor of its own.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art: Sasabune
  2. Food as Art: Urwasawa
  3. Food as Art: Ludobites 6.0
  4. Food as Art: Calima
  5. Food as Art: Melisse
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Asian, Dessert, fish, Food, Japan, Japanese, Japanese cuisine, Miso soup, Nobu, Nobu Matsuhisa, Olive oil, Restaurant, reviews, sake, Sushi, Tokyo, World Cuisines
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