Gonpachi's courtyard

Restaurant Row on La Cienega Boulevard has been long known for its large, overly expensive eateries — Lawry’s The Prime Rib, Benihana, Woo Lae Oak, The Stinking Rose. But the Row’s Gonpachi Beverly Hills, though large, is one of the best values on that strip with its incredibly fresh-tasting sushi-grade fish and satisfying hot dishes, including robata.

I was recently invited to dinner at Gonpachi to try out its new menu. I hadn’t been to the restaurant for years, and only for happy hour, so I was excited to go back. The courtyard is lush with foliage and a koi pond, and the interior is reminiscent of the film Kill Bill (which was filmed at the Tokyo location of Gonpachi). All this really sets the scene for the fine meals served here.

Gonpachi Beverly Hills

I took Rory along as my dining companion (naturally), and we started our meal with the garlic soy edamame, which was a tasty twist on the usual edamame appetizer.

Garlic soy edamame at Gonpachi

One of my favorite dishes of the night was the Smoky Yellowtail Jalapeno crudo, which came with a dome of apple wood smoke over the yellowtail sashimi, avocado, jalapeno and citrus soy vinaigrette. A little flashy, yes, but oh-so tasty. The dish was creamy, spicy, smoky and citrusy — a great combination.

Smoky Yellowtail Jalapeno

Smoky Yellowtail Jalapeno

From the robata menu, we tried a bunch of items. I liked the scallops in soy butter, though it was rich! The presentation was nice, too.

Scallops in soy butter

My favorite robata item was the kakuni skewer made with braised Niman Ranch pork belly and karashi. The pork belly literally melted in my mouth — I was in heaven! The tsukune ground chicken skewer also had nice flavor, but the poached egg it came with was strange to me because it was cold. The negima crispy chicken skewer and the Brussels sprouts skewer weren’t stand outs.

(From left to right) tsukune, negima, kakuni and Brussels sprouts

The sushi roll we had, the Geisha made with a spicy tuna roll topped with assorted fish and avocado, was also a good choice. The fish was nice and fresh, though there was a lot of mayonnaise-based sauce going on.

Geisha roll

For dessert, we had the Pumpkin Zensai with sweet azuki beans, mochi balls and vanilla ice cream in a pumpkin soup topped with almonds. I liked this a lot because it was creamy but not too sweet, and I always like those red azuki beans and mochi.

Pumpkin Zenzai

All in all, Gonpachi offers great value — quality food in a pretty setting. Prices are moderate, especially for the type of cuisine. The most expensive item on the menu is the chef’s sushi omakase at $70, but most items fall under the $20 mark. It’s the best deal on the block.

Note: This meal was hosted.

Unfiltered Dassai 50 sake. Available only in the United States.

I love finding great hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and Sushi Central at the corner Palms Boulevard and Overland Avenue is just that: an under-the-radar sushi joint that serves good quality fish in a no-nonsense environment.

When I was invited by a sake sommelier Yuji Matsumoto to a sushi and sake pairing at a Palms sushi restaurant, I wasn’t sure what to expect, especially because I’m not normally a big fan of sake. But what we diners got was an epic meal with seven dishes and four sakes — a delicious and enlightening experience that has made me now like and appreciate sake.

Matsumoto, who also happens to be the beverage R&D manager for the Kabuki restaurants, teamed up with Sushi Central’s chef and owner Phillip Yi and Dassai sake representative Kazuhiro Sakurai (who came from Japan!) to give us a proper Japanese meal. We also learned a few things about sake, too. For example, when you see a number on a sake bottle, that’s the percent of the rice grain that’s left after it has been polished prior to brewing. The lower the number, the higher the quality.

Sake rice

Kazuhiro Sakurai

The nicest pairing for me was the yellowtail with the Dassai 23, which retails for $80 per bottle in the United States ($1,000 in Dubai!). The sake is fruity, with notes of apple, lychee and mango. The yellowtail sushi was great on its own, but the flavor completely changes and opens up when paired with the Dassai 23. It’s pretty amazing.

Yellowtail sushi

My favorite sushi of the night was the monkfish liver, which I thought was going to be really dense and heavy but was actually pretty light and airy. No, really. I’ve had livers I’ve liked (foie gras) and livers I haven’t (cow), so I was a little weary about this one, but I was pleasantly surprised. This was paired with the Dassai 23. (Fellow diner Esther of e*starLA missed this one, and I was sad for her!)

Monkfish liver sushi

We also had salmon belly, blue crab and spicy tuna sushi paired with Dassai 50 because these are fattier fish.

Salmon belly sushi

Blue crab roll

Spicy tuna roll

Dassai 50 sake

We also had a pairing of Japanese mackerel with Dassai 39. The mackerel is a stronger-tasting fish, but I still enjoyed it.

Japanese mackerel

We also had the ono, which Chef Yi calls his “crack” fish. I believe it was possibly lightly seared because it had a smoky flavor. It was pretty darn good.

Ono sushi

The omakase at Sushi Central ranges from about $55 to $125, and Yi says he always ends with uni. One caveat: Sushi Central doesn’t have a liquor license, so it’s BYOB all the way here. The restaurant holds sushi classes on Sundays and about every three months holds a seasonal food and sake pairing with Matsumoto.

Matsumoto (left), Yi (right)

This meal was hosted.

I was a little weary about accepting an invitation to a hosted dinner at Kabuki, the small West Coast Japanese restaurant chain, because, you know, it’s a chain. But I said to myself, “Self, don’t be so critical. Have an open mind.” Since I had been to a Kabuki only once years ago, I decided to give it a chance. And I was pleasantly surprised by some of the dishes, and not surprised by others.

Let me explain. Kabuki is not a straightforward Japanese restaurant; it’s a fusion place, with menu influences from all over, including Mexican and Italian. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make you expect (and not expect) certain things. That said, Kabuki offers a lot of traditional Japanese food, such as sushi, sashimi and ramen, as well as beef carpaccio and shrimp risotto.

So I went to the Kabuki in Hollywood to give it a whirl. It turns out that this location will be introducing some new appetizers later this month, so we (Esther of e*starLA, Cathy of Gastronomy Blog, Javier of Teenage Gluster, Pat of Eating L.A. and Fiona of Gourmet Pigs) had first crack at trying these new items, all of which will be most likely priced for less than $10.

First up was Ahi poke tuna with avocado, seaweed, daikon, ponzu sauce and sesame seeds. This was one of the dishes that pleasantly surprised me. The flavors are well-balanced, and the daikon is a nice touch, too.

Ahi poke tuna

Next was yellowtail carpaccio with a spicy ponzu sauce and jalapeno slices. This was also pretty good, though it didn’t have as much flavor as the poke dish.

Yellowtail carpaccio

There were also three new rolls, including my favorite the Baja roll. It’s essentially a California roll made with spicy mayo mixed with the crab inside and topped with more crab, pico de gallo, and served with more spicy mayo on the side. The pico de gallo complemented the roll well.

Baja roll

The last two new rolls, the Vegas roll and the Lasagna roll, I wasn’t that impressed with. The Vegas roll, much like a Philly roll, is made with salmon, cream cheese, crab, cucumber and deep fried like tempura, didn’t taste bad, but I found the cream cheese off-putting (which is why I never order Philly rolls, either). It was also gargantuan, relatively speaking.

Vegas roll

Talking about cheese, the Lasagna roll was covered in it — literally. It’s a California roll topped with cream cheese, mozzarella and parmesan, melted under the broiler. In the name of science or whatever, I tried a piece, and my ideas about sushi and cheese were not altered. That is, sushi and cheese should not mix. Kabuki gets point for trying, but this missed the mark for me.

Lasagna roll

On the other hand, I tried a few other things that I did enjoy, including the cured salmon appetizer with kiwi, orange, olive oil and radish.

Cured salmon

I also liked the soy ramen with Napa cabbage, bean sprouts, onions and asparagus. Maybe I liked this so much because it was a cold, rainy night, but I think this was a pretty decent bowl of ramen, even if it was meatless.

Soy ramen

The Lobster Dynamite made with lobster tail, soy sauce, sake, avocado and dynamite sauce (more mayo). Even though dynamite dishes are drenched in mayo and I don’t usually like mayo, this was a tasty dish. So creamy.

Lobster Dynamite

I also tried the Lotus on Fire roll, which is a California roll topped with spicy tuna, lotus root chips and jalapeno, served with spicy mayo and spicy tempura crumbles on the side. I’m a sucker for the spicy tuna-jalapeno combination, but this one was just OK. There was too much spicy tuna on top of the actual roll, and it overwhelmed the dish. I’ll stick with the Fire de Kaz at Boss Sushi for this one.

Lotus on Fire roll

A piece of Lotus on Fire roll

For dessert we tried a bunch of sweets, mostly chocolate-based, but my favorite was the Freddo, which is pretty much Korean shaved ice. It’s made with shaved ice topped with ice cream, condensed sweetened milk, fruit and chocolate sauce. We chose red bean ice cream, but it tasted more like strawberry because it was so sweet.

Freddo

There were some hits and some misses, but overall, I enjoyed the meal more than I thought I would. Just stay away from the cheese.

Thanks to Marni of Happy Go Marni, who lives just up the street from me, for turning me on to Boss Sushi, a gem of a sushi place hidden in plain sight on the stretch of La Cienega Boulevard between Olympic and Wilshire boulevards. You may, or may not have, noticed it: just up the street from La Cienega Park, Boss Sushi has a largely unadorned exterior that could pass for any number of hole-in-the-wall, strip-mall sushi joints (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, by the way).

But inside is a pretty nice-looking space that includes a long sushi bar, where you can order up some pretty cool rolls. [Note: I'm not a sushi purist, though I do appreciate a quality piece of fish. I gravitate toward rolls versus the pieces; just sayin'.] We — Marni, Lindsay of LAist and I — started off with the Fire de Kaz roll ($13): spicy tuna, avocado, fried garlic and spicy mayo inside, with more spicy tuna, jalapeno and a spicy sesame sauce on top. Sounds like it would be insanely spicy with all that “spicy” in the description, but it wasn’t. The spiciness was well-balanced, and the fried garlic gave it just the right amount of crunchy texture to make it really interesting. Delicious. (Thanks, Marni, for the recommendation!)

Fire de Kaz roll

Next, we had a Hamataku ($12), a rice-less roll made with chopped yellow tail, avocado, scallions and smelt eggs rolled up in pickled radish, and topped with a ginger sauce. It was a little hard to eat because it falls apart easily, but once you’re able to get it in your mouth, it’s a refreshing bite because there is no rice. This one was actually spicier than the Fire de Kaz, somehow.

Hamataku

This was a late dinner, so we made it a light one. The last roll we had was a simple salmon, avocado and cucumber roll, which was also satisfying. There’s a cocktail menu, too, but I didn’t really take a look at it, so I can’t comment on that. What I can say is I’m glad I finally tried this place after passing by it so many times. The presentation of the food is pretty, and while the prices aren’t inexpensive, they’re not through-the-roof, either. The most expensive roll on the menu is $14, but the rolls are large. It’s a good value. So don’t be turned off by the nondescript exterior; take a chance on Boss because you won’t regret it.

And in more happy hour news…

I’m a sucker for good, inexpensive food and drink. Cheap eats, as it were. And you can always find deals during happy hour, right? (Sometimes, if I can muster the appetite that early, I’ll make happy hour my dinner. But I digress.)

So e*starla and I went to check out the happy hour at Hokusai, a Japanese restaurant near the intersection of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards in the space that used to house Continental. It’s pretty darn close to where we live, and just across the street from e*starla’s place of business. (This was a while ago, but you know you still want to hear about it — because it’s happy hour!)

From 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. weekdays, the Japanese restaurant offers well-endowed bar bites for between $1.99 to $4.99 each, including hand rolls ($1.99) to fried calamari ($4.99). There are also drinks specials that include beer and sake $3 or $6 depending on size, glasses of wine for $7, and well drinks and house martinis for $5.

I liked the food better than the drinks we had here. We tried the lychee, fuji apple and guava sunrise martinis. They were too sweet for my taste. But in terms of the food, everything we had was pretty good.

California and spicy scallop handrolls

Assorted sushi

We tried the seafood cigars, stuffed with shellfish and fried like eggrolls. They were decent, but a little over fried. Better were the crispy rice tacos, which basically resembled a California roll in taco form. Since I like California rolls, this was really appealing to me, and it didn’t disappoint. I appreciated the whole slices of avocado; no skimping! The rock shrimp tempura was tasty in a spicy sauce and came on a bed of greens, like a salad. The handrolls and sushi were tasty, too.

Seafood cigars

Crispy rice tacos

Rock shrimp tempura

So while Hokusai might be an overlooked happy hour destination, stop by if you’re in the Mid-City West/Beverly Hills neighborhood. Good food at good prices.