Dining-Out: Sushi Gen Lives Up To Its Reputation (1 of Them)
I was very excited to go to Sushi Gen on Thurday evening. A website the I generally respect and agree with it’s editorial content is www.citysearch.com I use CitySearch extensively when deciding what to try- not only food, but hairstylists, gyms, etc. My only complaint be that they do not give enough credit to South Bay establishments (more to Santa Monica, West LA, Venice, and Beverly Hills), but I believe Shade won “best of botique hotel” for 2007, but no mention of Beach House hotel in any category; People stll voted for “Sharkeez Hermosa” in the best of category, I guess to provide support since it did burn down quite awhile ago.
So I see “Sushi Gen” is Editor’s Choice Sushi Restaurant, ahead of many other familiar ones. And it was 3 blocks from me, so my friend and I head down at about 8:30. It is in at little strip mall called Honda Plaza at SE corder of 2nd and Central.
Many good restaurants are visible by the lines waiting outside; this had one couple. We go in, and sure enough, the guy they talk about in the reviews is at host stand- the word is if you can get by him you are golden. He takes 5 min. to tell us that it’s 45 min wait for sushi bar and 35 for a table, and all the ground rules (minimum sushi order is 4 plates per serson, blah, blah- they all have that down here- you sit at the sushi bar and order tempura or rice bowl and you are “Persona non-grata”, and I’m trying to make friends.
It turns out that everyone waiting was using cellphones/blackberries in cars, etc. and would just come in before us (I was hoping they had left or something, as still no line). So we decided to walk around “Honda Mall”.
I had walked through it before in daytime and thought “what a dump for Honda to have to have it’s name on (I’m sure it’s a different Honda family, whatever). But at night the place is alive with about 10 small Japanese restaurants, including Korean BBQ too. So we opted to try a Japanese steak house– Kizuna, which had nice decorating, no wait, and I could use some steak after all the recent sushi! The ambience and service were just perfect - I wish I could have a house designed like this place. And it is RIGHT across parking lot from Sushi Gen.
I could not find one piece of info on this place on the net- is it new? But I had great appetizers, and 10 oz, filet, (my date’s meal escapes me, but none was over $20) with large saki and beer for about $58 total. Now, maybe 2 ox of steak was a little fatty, but other 8 oz was mouthwatering. I must admit that as a “corn-bred midwestern guy” I was disappoingted that they had NO potatos of anykind. They did not serve sushi there at all either- not an issue that night as I did not need “Surf and Turf”.
Here’s where I first learned about “Sushi Gen” - see it one “Editor’s Choice” and then click that link, and then read some of the reviews (there are 34 if you are so inclined…).
We will be back… just not quite so hungry and in a hurry to eat something.
One more thing you may not be used to seeing, but most of these places have “rules” if you want to sit at sushi bar- for example, $8 minimum or 4 orders of sushi per person (not including alcohol). They do not want you at sushi bar ordering anything but sushi and sashimi- no soup, appetizers, no dessert, etc. I still love this sign in front of Hama Sushi Window:
