Restaurant: Sushi Gen
Location: 422 E 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012. (213) 617-0552
Date: April 7, 2015
Cuisine: Japanese Sushi
Rating: B+ sushi factory!
People have been talking about Sushi Gen for some time, but given the surplus of great sushi on the Westside I don’t usually head Downtown (to little Tokyo) for it. But I saw it recently next to Kinjiro and decided to hit it up with my buddy Sebastian.
The interior is actually fairly large for a sushi bar, bigger than even this Pano makes it look.
And they have the usual sushi bar list of “rules.”
We sat at the sushi bar and had the chef make us a lunch omakase.
o-toro. Great fatty slabs.
Amberjack.
Ama-ebi (sweet shrimp).
Kasugo (Sea bream). With yuzu and chili.
Shrimp miso. The shrimp heads return!
Sawara (Spanish Mackerel).
Baby squid with sweet sauce. Yum! And in season.
Needle fish. Second time recently I’ve had this.
Ankimo (monkfish liver). Rich and tangy as usual. Very nice cut of it.
Shima-aji (White trevally).
Uni (Sea urchin). Always one of my favorites.
Toro and scallion hand roll.
Scallop hand roll with roe.
Sushi Gen was huge and mobbed. This place is like a factory, just churning out a volume of sushi that is rather astonishing. Probably at least 10x the volume per hour of a place like Zo or Sushi Sushi. Maybe 20x. The quality was quite good. Not as good as those above or an omakase at Shunji or Shiki or anything, but quite good. And it was relatively reasonable for very good sushi. I don’t know if I’d come here for dinner, but if I was downtown for lunch and hankering for sushi I’d be happy to return.
