Dom Ku

The trendy bento box is only available during lunch! Regardless, they have a lot of other enticing options. Their drinks are also pretty interesting so we had the Moscow mule, cactus, and raspberry apple cider. They go down like juice, so watch out lol.
For food, we ordered the salmon tartare, bluefin tuna and avocado carpaccio, wagyu and toro donburi, and the special wagyu hot stone with beef from Mie. I think the salmon tartare was my favorite, with butter salmon in rich seasoning on crunchy battered seaweed. The carpaccio was pretty messy and it didn’t seem like they wanted tuna to be a highlight of the dish, more like part of a bit of salad. The donburi has beautiful presentation, but it’s a little disappointing. There’s only like 4 chunks of tuna at the top, and the Wagyu is pretty substandard; you can see from the picture that it’s not really marbled like what you typically imagine. The hot stone beef is much better and a little fun to cook as well.

We came on a Wednesday afternoon and it was empty and we took advantage of the lunch special to get the bbq chicken and beef sage, both coming with fried rice. The service was good, our server was polite and offered everything we needed. We even got little salads, which I don’t think came with the lunch deal. Very simple, but it’s the thought that counts. The interior is not the most modern, but it’s not run-down or dirty, just a bit old. They even have the fish tank, a sign of authenticity.
The sate was very good. Outside was charred with a bit of crisp while the inside was juicy and it was all flavorful. The accompanying fried rice had ketchup mixed in, which is why it’s red? I like ketchup rice 🙊, but it was just unexpected.

Good tempura is traditionally high class, light, and expensive. Hannosuke offers a different approach to tempura with their tendon rice bowls that are saucy, robust, and full of flavor. Their menu concept is very simple: tempura, soba, and rice, but they still have a lot of choices and even a kids option. I ordered the Edomae Tendon because it had the anago (freshwater eel). It came with lots of rice, miso soup, and some pickled ginger. It all tastes very good and it’s very hearty. Only issue is that it could be crunchier. The tempura was a little soggy.

Torigoya is a small yakitori spot that fills up very quickly so get there when it opens or you’ll have to wait. When seated, you have a paper slip to order skewers and then they have a menu with items and prices. Their staff are hustling to serve all the guests and they were timely, despite being so busy.
Unfortunately they were out of Chicken Nanban when we ordered. All the skewers were very good, no complaints. The chicken thigh is incredibly tender, and the soft thigh is even more! The sauce is flavorful but maybe a little bit too much. They use the same sauce for any of their skewers so I prefer the salted option to let the chicken and charcoal flavor shine. Prices are average for yakitori in LA, but it tastes above average and they don’t skimp out on portion size or ingredient quality.

Very good pizza. We ordered online and they were ready in 10 minutes. We got a bbq chicken pizza and it was super flavorful and sauces up. The pizza was not dry or too bready. It had a good amount of cheese but it’s not like those super cheesy pizzas. The slices are kinda floppy but with the medium they’re not like Brooklyn style mega slices that you can fold. A pizza here is like twice the price of dominos but I think it’s worth it.