Restaurant: Kiriko Sushi [1, 2]

Location: 11301 Olympic Blvd #102, West Los Angeles, CA 90064. TELL (310) 478-7769

Date: August 21, 2012

Cuisine: Japanese / Sushi

Rating: Very nice!

It was Tuesday, and I’d just gotten back from a month of entirely Croatian meals, so I felt the burning need for sushi.

Kiriko filled the bill with its unassuming storefront on the corner of Olympic and Sawtelle, right next to the Yakatori place.

I’ve been here three times before, but always ordered the Omakase. This time I decided to get some of the more interesting dishes off the menu.

“Miso soup with fresh Nori seaweed.” This wasn’t interesting, but it was good.

“Soy marinated fresh salmon egg with grated daikon radish.” I love Ikura and this was a slightly different take on it. Really quite delectable with a nice soy/brine flavor.

“Shrimp and vegetable pot stickers.” Both temperature and spicy hot, they had that yummy pan fried thing going.

“Halibut tempura wrapped with shiso leaf and ume plum, served with sea salt.” Really yummy, like Japanese fish and chips. The fish was tender and soft without being mushy but it was the sisho that really sold it.

The salt as advertised.

“Homade smoked wild salmon sashimi plate (sockeye and king).” The one on the left tasted like lox, the right more just like fantastic salmon. Pretty darn awesome.

“Fresh albacore from oregon sashimi.” With a ponzu and garlic chips. Also pretty melt in your mouth amazing.

“Sea urchin and sea salt ice cream with salsa fresco gazpacho.” Now this is different, but good. The soup is a fairly straight up gazpacho flavor and the “ice cream” really WAS ice cream, made from Uni! Interesting combo and very refreshing.

“Seared kinki snapper with shiso pesto sauce.” The fish was incredibly tender and not fishy at all. Very interesting and delectable flavor/texture thing going on.

“Seared blue fin tuna with truffle butter flavor.” Wow! This was like Wagyu beef, but it was tuna. Pretty awesome.

“Anago seared sea eel sashimi with ume sauce.” The eel is blow torched and has a nice char to it, and the sauce is sweet and sour. Very interesting. Still, I might prefer the traditional BBQ eel, but this was very good.

“Seared scallop sushi.” Yummy, yummy. Also I like my scallop totally raw best.

This was my best meal at Kiriko (and all were good). Ordering off the menu allowed us to try some unusual things (like Uni Ice Cream!) and it really worked out. Inventive stuff. Good stuff. It’s really nice to see a chef being creative with sushi/sashimi and not following exactly in the Matsuhisa mould.

I wrote up a couple other meals at Kiriko or

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