Top 12 Spots to Get Uni and Ramen in Los Angeles

These two "collections" of favorites list I made for Foodie.com are for those looking to pig out!

You should know by now how much I love uni or sea urchin, so here are my 12 favorite spots to get dishes made with uni, or just to get fresh uni in the shell.


Best ramen in LA? That is a controversial topic indeed, but to create a list of the top 12 was actually pretty hard! We have a lot of great ramen places, but apparently there still can be more. Some of these places are actually my favorite places for tsukemen and not ramen, but close enough :)

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Sushi Omakase and More at Hamasaku

Full disclaimer: I came here on a hosted media lunch, but I had also come back twice after that on my own dime (granted one of them was using the 30% off from the awesome Blackboard Eats). Hamasaku in West LA has actually been open for many years and is a Zagat favorite, but for some reason I hadn't really heard much about it and had not been until I was invited in. I've missed out! This place was great.

The omakase listed on the menu ($75) actually includes a lot of cooked items, so here's a tip: Go on any other day but Monday and sit at the sushi bar, preferably in front of the sushi chef, Yoya, who used to work at Sashi in Manhattan Beach.

My sushi lunch omakase started with some Uni with fried Yuba (tofu skin)

Big uni pieces and so fresh, but the best part is the contrast with the crunchy yuba. What a wonderful start to my lunch!

Next, a sashimi plate of: Blue fin tuna, aji snapper, young king mackerel, octopus. Served with kabosu (a sort of citrus) paste

Agedashi tofu. I always love the delicately fried agedashi tofu and the broth

Big eye tuna from Hawaii

This tuna is very rich and fatty, almost like a chu-toro. Loved it. For the sushi they use haiga-mai (half-milled) rice. It's half way between brown and white rice so it has more nutrients than white rice but tastes just like white rice.

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An Intimate Sushi Omakase Experience at Nozawa Bar (Beverly Hills)

When they built Sugarfish in Beverly Hills, they had planned for Nozawa Bar all along and kept a room in the back for that sole purpose. Now, Nozawa Bar is open and taking reservations for ten people, two seatings per night for a sushi omakase experience. It's not Nozawa wielding the knife, but Osamu Fujita has long worked with Nozawa and has his stamp of approval. After my omakase meal there, I would say perhaps the setting and timing actually allows for a more refined experience than the busy Sushi Nozawa was in Studio City.

I knew my sushi, or thought I did, but for more than a couple of courses at Nozawa Bar I had a few moments where I went "no way, that wasn't ...". There were moments of learning that season really matters, and preparation matters. More on that later, on to the meal first.

As I said, there are two seatings per night for everyone (at 6PM and 8:30PM), so don't be late! I was five minutes late and missed Fujita-san slicing up the jelly fish for the first course. I didn't miss eating the course, though, luckily (everyone is served the courses at the same time).

The crisp jellyfish was a nice opener to whet your appetite.
Sashimi plate of tuna and octopus before moving on to nigiri sushi

The nigiri courses start out with a bang with the chu toro. This a blue fin tuna chu toro, although the fattiness is close to oo toro.

Just like Nozawa's style, the rice is served slightly warm so that the sushi feels like it's melting in your mouth.

Ika (squid)

Fresh and firm squid on top of a shiso leaf.

Switching to the opposite spectrum of texture is a perfectly creamy Santa Barbara uni

A generous serving of it, too!

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CAST: The Reinvented Restaurant at Viceroy Santa Monica

Whist at The Viceroy in Santa Monica has reinvented itself as CAST, but Chef Tony DiSalvo is still going strong in the kitchen. The new name, CAST, draws focus to its proximity to the ocean and the seafood dishes.

Pay attention to the crostini section, and don't miss the sea urchin crostini with sea salt, lemon, and larda ($6 each). Perfectly creamy, and the light dressing of salt and lemon brings out the rich flavors even more.

Equally worthy but less of a splurge is the burrata crostini with pesto, tomato ($3 each). This was also one of the creamiest burrata I've had in LA.

The crostinis are thin, meant to serve as a vessel to the uni and burrata without masking the flavors.

Oh, if you are on Instagram, be sure to take a photo and tag @viceroySM. You will get a free glass of sparkling wine for doing so! For a glass of white wine that will go with seafood dishes, we enjoyed the 2010 Supernatural Sauvignon Blanc, Napa, California ($13).

It's not all seafood here, of course. Chef DiSalvo kept his famous Lamb Kefta meatballs because riots might break out if he ever takes it off the menu. At the moment they are served with orange, pistachio, and yogurt ($10)

We started our feast with the Diver scallops, dungeness crab risotto, snap peas, shiso vinaigrette ($18 or $33 for full size - I believe the one pictured is the half size)

Perfectly cooked scallops, creamy risotto with chunks of sweet crab, crisp snap peas. What a nice seafood dish, the flavors are light yet satisfying.
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Fishing With Dynamite: The Bomb in Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach dining scene is blowing up. Following his success at M. B. Post, Chef David Lefevre opened up Fishing with Dynamite just a few doors down, this time focusing on seafood.

Not to miss at Fishing with Dynamite is their raw bar selection, including (of course) a great selection of eight different oysters. My recent favorite is the Sweet Petite (Cape Cod, MA). Like the name suggests, it's one of the sweetest oysters out there!

Think you know scallops? Hold that thought until you try the Peruvian Scallops ($22/dozen), perhaps the most unique item on the raw bar menu. Small yet succulent and sweet, perfectly accented by the grapefruit.

We also had Littleneck clams ($26/dozen) and Atlantic Lobster ($20 for half), both excellent.

Uni lovers (that would be me) shouldn't miss the special and aptly named Bomb.com: hand harvested Santa Barbara sea urchin ($15)

You can choose two of these sauces: mignonette, cocktail, ponzu, pico de gallo, yuzu kosho mayo, saffron aioli, remoulade. Which one you should get depends on what raw items you're getting!

Cocktails are also great here and designed to go with the seafood dishes and there are options for all palates from martini lovers to those who like richer, sweeter cocktails like flips. If you want something spicier, try the Regalo de Dios (Hacienda de Chihuahua sotol, Combier, strawberry-rhubarb puree, serrano, rhubarb bitters).

Those who prefer more aromatic drinks should opt for Through the Looking Glass (No. 3 gin, Tio Pepe fino sherry, Cocchi Americano, orange bitters, Dolin dry vermouth rinse).

There were also a couple of specials on the menu that day:
Hamachi, avocado, ponzu, radish, serrano, shiso ($16)

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Doma (Beverly Hills)

The owner of Dan Tana has branched out of the old school Italian with Doma, a modern Mediterranean Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills. It's a casual but elegant space with a focus on seafood. The chef, Dustin Trani, grew up working in his family seafood restaurant, J. Trani's in San Pedro. He has also trained in Europe and worked in Thailand, and he brings these influences into his menu.

I got to the restaurant too early for my media dinner, so I sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender. The cocktail menu during the opening was simple, but he said that they will soon be expanding the menu to include more complex drinks including a barrel aged Negroski (Cynar, Campari, basil infused vodka).

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He let me take a peek at the upcoming menu, which was definitely a lot more interesting than the opening menu. I ordered the Mexican Grill which was mezcal, Chartreuse, and peppers. Spicy and smoky!

After everyone else arrived, we sat down for an extensive tasting that started with some fresh Japanese hamachi sashimi, ginger soy, ponzu caviar, carrot, cucumber, scallion, sesame tuile ($18, the portion shown is for a tasting, probably not the full portion)

The ponzu "caviar" is a fun touch here

I won't show you everything I ate that night, but here are some of the many many highlights:

Local crispy calamari and rock shrimp, sweet and spicy Thai aioli, balsamic reduction, micro herb, $16)

This is an example of how Dustin's training in Thailand his dishes. The spicy aioli is a nice and unique departure from the usual tomato based sauce.

Baked eggplant and ricotta involtini (grilled eggplant, filled with ricotta and basil, baked over tomato sauce, $12)

A lighter counterpart of the eggplant parmigiana, this is a simple and comforting dish.

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Omakase at Sushi Kimagure (Pasadena)

I used to complain that there was no stellar sushi in Pasadena, but that was before Sushi Kimagure moved in. The man behind Kimagure is Ike-san from the beloved Sushi Ike that was in Hollywood. The day he decided to shutter his Hollywood spot and open up in Pasadena was a good day for us.

Dining at the sushi bar at Kimagure is by reservation only, and considering our 7pm party did not leave until near closing time, there's probably only one seating per night.

It was my long awaited first visit so of course we had omakase. We didn't get Ike-san as our itamae that night but our meal was still excellent.

It was impressive to watch how fast these sushi chefs were working, especially considering their age!

To start, a vegetable potato salad

Most places may save toro towards the end of a meal, but here they dive directly into bluefin tuna (maguro) and toro as your first pieces.

The toro was superb

Sushi is not just about the fresh fish, but the rice as well, and here at Kimagure they are both excellent. It's not the warm rice of Nozawa (which I sometimes think is too warm and detracts from the fish) but it still melts in your mouth.

Next was another one of my favorite cuts, hamachi belly

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Tasting Menu at Shunji (West LA)

Shunji is one of the hot recent restaurant openings, with Chef Shunji Nakao's serving his "contemporary" omakase in an inconspicuous stand-alone building on Pico Blvd. There are only a handful of tables and a few seats at the sushi bar, and the chef prepared most of the dishes personally (some get fired in the kitchen).

His printed menu looks like the standard Japanese restaurant, but we had read about his omakase (the omakase was not printed on the menu) and just asked for that.

As an amuse bouche, a small bowl of jelly with cucumber and vinegar sauce

Next is a plate of small bites of vegetables, ankimo topped with caviar, a ball of purple potato with blue cheese and persimmon, and sweet potato with feta and truffle

Unsure if we were supposed to eat these in a particular order, we moved in one direction and it moves from rich (ankimo) to the palate cleansing, crisp, unadorned vegetables to the creamy potatoes

The scallop sashimi, topped with arugula flower, was so fresh

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