Road Trip - Sushi Yuen (City of Industry)

On the way back from Lancaster we decided to stop in our old neighborhood. We'd spend the night and do some shopping and drop by Mountain House for takeout on the way home the next day. I did have something planned for dinner though. There was a Sushi/Omakase restaurant that opened in a strip mall on Gale, between Fullerton and Nogales a while back named Sushi Yuen. Man, this strip mall wasn't even constructed when we moved away from the area.

Sushi Yuen is an all Omakase shop, according to what I had read they actually got seafood from Toyosu Market in Tokyo. At the time of our visit, dinner was running at $250 per person (drinks not included), with a $150 deposit for each diner.

Anyway, after checking in at the Best Western and taking a short nap, we actually walked on over......now there's not much pedestrian activity on Gale, so we did get some weird looks.

   We checked in and waited until we were walked over to our seats. The restaurant has sushi bar only seating. I counted a total of 15 seats for our dinner.

There's a brief selection of wine and sake available. We did end up having a glass of the Zaku and the Tenbei during our meal.

Speaking of glasses, metal tumblers were brought to the table. Once filled with ice water, a pattern appeared! Kinda neat.

Due to the amount of dishes in this meal, I'll try to be as brief as possible.

There was five staff working behind the counter; the head man, who introduced himself as Ryan was very friendly, as was the young man who would eagerly show us the products being used for our dishes.

And you can see what was going to be part of our first dish.

Notice all the fresh wasabi at the bottom of the screen?

   As you can tell by that photo, hairy crab was going to be in the first dish, which ended up being a wonderful savory chawan mushi.

Decadently smooth and creamy, permeated with the frangrance of sweet-savory-oceany crab, this was a wonderful start to our meal.

Next up, Katsuo (Skipjack) Tataki.

This had a mild smokiness to it; on the firmer side in texture, with that nice, all too familiar umami "punch".

Next up was the Hokkaido Hotate with Kaluga Caviar.

Gently coated, with a wonderful, light, crisp coating. The scallop was perfectly cooked, the slightly firm and wonderfully sweet flesh was so delici-yoso! It really didn't need the caviar, but heck, there it was and I wasn't going to complain about that!

We'd first come across "Tacu" in CDMX, at its most basic it's using nori in place of a tortilla. This was a negi-toro tacu.

The highlight of this was the interplay of the pungent-herbaceous-slightly sweet wasabi, the minty-chlorophllic-anise shiso, and the savory nori.

Next up was the grilled Tachiuo, belt fish.

The flesh was so buttery in texture, it basically melted in your mouth. The flavor was mild, so having the crisp skin on made all the difference.

The Akami-zuke was quite routine.

Perfectly texture maguro, but even more impressive was the rice which cooked to perfection, every grain could be counted, but the texture was soft, the "shari" was nicely balanced.

Aji-Miso was next.

Nice textural contrast, but the nice rich-savory flavor of the Horse Mackerel was kind of overwhelmed by the miso sauce.

I was quite excited to see Nodoguro (Black throat sea perch) as the next item. This is a rarity for us here in the states.

Man, this was so rich and buttery in texture. The flavor was mild and was enhanced by the "tare".

We didn't care much for the Ankimo-Yuzu. It was like they were trying to cover up the natural flavor of the ankimo.

Think of it as being mashed ankimo "potato-ish" salad. We enjoy the texture of ankimo which was not featured in this dish. Too sweet-sour.

The folks must have been reading our minds, because next up was a "shot" of Katsuo Dashi!

Which helped to "reset" our palates.

The Hirame was quite good, great texture!

While having the Hirame, we noticed some items being cooked on the griddle.

This turned out to be charred Saba, made into sort of temaki.

This was very good; the skin crisp, the oil content made the flesh so very creamy and reduced the strong fishy flavor!

Next up was another fairly rare fish for SoCal, Sayori (Half-beak) Nigiri.

So clean and refreshing! The somewhat sweet, delicate flavor wasn't overwhelmed by the tare. This was ono!

Then the Chu-Toro.

Rich and fatty goodness! On perfect rice, the tare did so well on this; adding the savory touches of soy and a hint of sweetness.

Kumamoto Tiger Prawn was up next.

While a tad overcooked, the shrimp was so sweet and oceany. 

 

We were then provided some Ebi Kakiage Udon

And were asked if we were ready for the "best part" of our meal! Whoa, even better than what we'd had? During this time we had a chance to chat with Ryan. We spoke about Japan. Ryan told us he closes Sushi Yuen twice a year to go to Japan, but is busy working with his suppliers there, so isn't able to visit many places.

And just to add an exclamation point to things we were given a preview of what was coming up!

As you can see; the A5 Wagyu came with it's own set of "papers".

As did the Hokkaido Uni!

But first, was the 8 Day Aged O-toro.......O-my!

So melt-in-your mouth tender that it should be illegal! And like all the nigiri, the rice and shari were perfect for our taste.

The sweet and deeply savory Hokkaido Uni, so creamy.

The flavor took me back to a memorable lunch in Sankaku Market in Otaru.

These last two items were so good that it made the Anago and Tamago seem like after thoughts.......I guess we needed to be brought back "down to earth?"

The Tamago was especially good, light, sweet, and fluffy. 

Usually, these two would  be the items that would close the meal. But of course there was one item we had a preview of that was missing.

Torching and smoking was in progress while we had our Anago and Tamago.

And soon enough these two covered bowls were provided.

Which opened up to display......

The A5 Wagyu! Well, in terms of flavor this was beefy heaven! Though I will say for my taste it was overcooked; I prefer mine rare.

And so a nice last dish to an epic meal, right?

But like that television pitch man says; "but wait, there's more"!

Have you ever seen or bought one of those $100 melons at the Japanese market?

The Missus had always been wondering about those and She finally had a chance to taste some.

Needless to say; the Missus thought the price of the melon is worth it!

As for the meal itself; well it was an epic one, with some excellent dishes. Would we have it again? Hmmm.....perhaps if we have an extra $800 lying around (or more as I've read that the price of dinner is now $275 per person). Sushi Yuen also serves an Omaksae lunch which is currently priced at around $150 per person and a $100 deposit for each customer. Please note that there are penalties for cancelling within 48 hours as well.

Boy has our old 'hood changed since we lived here!

 

Sushi Yuen
18558 Gale Ave.
City of Industry, CA 91748

Comments

[Peter]

That fish is BEAUTIFUL...

[Kirk]

Which one Peter? ;o) I'm thinking the 8 Day Aged O-toro?

[Kenneth]

wow! Yeah pricey, but what a meal. And by LA standards probably considered reasonable. Glad you hit a home run after a few recent strike outs.

[Dereck]

This looks like it was a fantastic meal. I get tired of the 'omakase' in socal, which doesn't usually match anything omakase I have had in Japan. A set menu isn't really omakase to me.

That uni looks dreamy.

[Kirk]

Yes, we were very happy with this meal Kenneth!

Yes, this was a great meal Dereck! And that uni....and the aged toro.....and when was the last time I had Nodoguro!?! The prices do change based on what's available.

[kat]

pricey but sounded like it was worth it

[Kirk]

We enjoyed this meal Kat!

[Sandy]

A home run meal! Sushi Yuen sounds Chinese; were the sushi chefs Japanese?

[Kirk]

Hi Sandy - The Owner, Ryan is Korean if I recall.