Written by: LeOnion, http://food.whitecarrot.com
It’s hard to find really good Japanese food in San Diego. Check that. I should say it’s hard to find good sashimi in San Diego. I was introduced to Edo Sushi when a couple of my friends got jobs there as waitresses. Edo Sushi is located in a pretty obscure area in the affluent La Jolla, CA area. It’s in the same plaza as the Rubio’s in the Renaissance community close to the UTC mall.
I knew about this place a few years ago and the sashimi there has always been some of the freshest available. I don’t go there often because sitting at the sushi bar can run up quite the bill. I only go there for special occasions nowadays. As luck would have it, I wanted to take out a good friend and I decided to treat her to some good sushi. As always, I opted to sit at the bar. I have never ordered any of the menu items (teriyaki, bentos, tempura, etc.), so this writeup is ONLY good for the sushi bar.
As usual, we sit down and the nice waitresses take our drink orders and gives up a small bowl of edamame appetizers. I find out who our sushi chef will be, greet him, and order him up some Kirin beer.
We were started with their sashimi salad which had a lot of field greens, salmon, yellowtail, and tuna. Their dressing is a light, sweet and a little sour ginger sauce (I think). Honestly, I think I look forward to the appetizer salad more than anything when I’m there.
From there, I used their checklist to order up some nigiri-sushi. Nigiri are the slab of fish over a small pad of rice. From the image above, you can see that I ordered sake (salmon), hamachi (yellowtail), ama-ebi (sweet, raw shrimp), and some maguro (lean, red tuna). You can also see in the picture there are two shrimp heads that have been deep fried. Those are also meant to be eaten, if you so desire.
They serve their nigiri as is should be. Unlike sushi buffets, where the pad of rice is larger than the fish, Edo gives you huge, thick slices of fish that just completely drapes over the rice. As expected, their sashimi is as fresh as ever. Now people say that it’s supposed to melt in your mouth. I know what they mean, but you still gotta chew your food! But with each chew, your eyes roll back and that moment feels blissful.
Next came the order of unagi (freshwater eel). Unagi is not served raw, but usually boiled, grilled, and then lightly coated with a layer of teriyaki sauce. The unagi served was fresh and extremely tender. On that same plate was the tako (octopus) that I ordered. This I just ordered because I happen to like it. Tako is hardly ever served raw. It is usually blanched because the raw form is way too tough.
The next dish that came, I didn’t even remember ordering. It’s unagi with tamago (sweet egg omelet) wrapped in seaweed. This was extremely rich with some kind of a sweet mayonnaise sauce in there. While, I like the Japanese sweet mayo, it was just a bit much for me.
Okay, by this time we were both really stuffed, but I had also ordered the Scallop 151. This is basically a scallop and crab casserole with Japanese mayo and other things all on a scallop shell. Underneath it is a shot of flaming Bacardi 151. Excellent dish if you’re looking to impress. I’ve had this dish before and I usually devour it, but in the end, my body won out and we had to leave it unfinished. What a shame.
Our sushi chef was very observant and had already noticed we were slowing down. He asked if we were still hungry and when we said we were not, he told us that he saw that and did not start making our final order. He had crossed off that order for us.
Our chef then passed off the bill to the waitress and gave us our dessert. It was a very nicely presented orange. There’s something about presentation that just makes food taste better.
Summary:
Overall, Edo Sushi is one of those places I like to go on special occasions when I just want good Japanese sashimi. Ironically, it is Korean run and owned, but it doesn’t take away from its authenticity. I highly recommend it if you’ve got some money saved up and want good, fresh sushi. Sit at the bar if you can, but you can still sit at the tables and order from the bar.
General information:
Street adress: 8895 Towne Centre Dr Ste 100A, (at Renaissance Ave), San Diego, CA 92122
Opening hours:
Phone number: +1 (858) 457-4455
How did you like Edo Sushi - La Jolla, San Diego?
Thanks LeOnion (good name) for letting me post this. I looooove your photography skills. I have a lot to learn. We have bought a good camera at least. Now I just have to dare to bring it to the restaurants.
Everyone - please visit http://food.whitecarrot.com/, a fabulous food blogging community.
Thanks for the compliments. For those interested, I am still using the venerable Canon 10D with a Canon 50mm F/1.4 lens. The 10D is showing its age, but the super fast lens compensates for it. I prefer not to use a flash, so I typically bump up the ISO setting to 800 or 1600 and shoot with the lens wide open. The AWB (auto white balance) is never really very “auto” so I then adjust that in Adobe Lightroom.