Sushi Nozomi

It was my son's last day in Los Angeles so I thought I would take him out to a nice dinner. He didn't have much time so dinner turned to a lunch. I asked him where he wanted me to take him. He did a little research and came up with Sushi Nozomi. It was one of the few sushi places that offered Omakase and that was open on a Monday. For those not familiar with Omakase, it is a meal which is entirely selected by the chef. You are at their mercy so to speak. This can go either way; wonderful or dreadful.

I got to the restaurant at 1:00 p.m. and waited for my son. This place was busy. I liked the place as it was not noisy. Nora Jones's music played in the background. They had a couple of private sections for bigger parties. The crowd was mostly business people coming for lunch; no families. By 2:00 p.m., most people have gone back to work.

We sat at the bar and had the 10 piece Omakase. They started us with Miso soup and a salad. The soup was a nice beginning. It warmed our tummies on this cold afternoon. To drink, I just ordered a diet coke, very uninteresting. Erik had a drink we were both not familiar with. It was a non-carbonated soft drink called Calpico. It's a Japanese soft drink and is a subsidiary of Asahi. He liked it. I had a sip and to me, it tasted like a flat 7-up.

Our first sushi was a red snapper, followed by a black snapper. These two pieces were so good. I remembered reading an article on how to eat sushi. You have to consume it as soon as the chef puts it on the plate....which we did. The snapper was followed by snow crab leg and then a bonito.

I must not have taken a picture of each of the fish as they almost looked alike. They all had their individual flavors. After the the bonito, Chef Taku served us a Spanish mackerel followed by amberjack. Then we had a medium fatty tuna and bluefin tuna. I was excited over the 9th sushi which was uni. I have never had it. My brother Gary always raved how good it was. By the looks of it, I thought to myself; I will either love this or hate it. As I popped the whole thing in my mouth like one is supposed to when eating sushi, I was amazed. The only way I can describe it is....it was like eating butter and cream. So smooth and just plain wonderful. Erik didn't enjoy it as much as I did. You can't go by him because he does not like creamy or rich  foods. You wouldn't think he is related to me.

The 10th sushi was salmon eggs. That too was delicious as those little suckers sort of popped in your mouth and released more deliciousness. We thought that was the last one but there was more. On our count, it was the 11th. Chef Taku served us each 4 medium fatty tuna with scallions. On that one, he gave us his blessings to dip it in soy sauce which we did. Mind you, there really was no need to dip any of the sushi as it already had a bit of wasabi and soy sauce in them.

It was a lovely lunch. I felt so healthy and cleansed for once. The other chef took a big hunk of fish and started chopping the head off, etc. I was amazed that with all that, there was no odor of any fish at all. As the saying goes, fish should not smell when it is fresh. I would definitely go back to this place. The only problem is most of my friends do not like sushi. So.....Amy and Nako, you will have to accompany me next time.

Sushi Nozomi is located at 1757 W. Carson St. #L in Torrance.