Grilled Wild Salmon Ochazuke
Kinjiro

Kinjiro

East 2nd Street, Los Angeles, 90012, United States Of America

Tea • Soup • Sushi • Izakaya


"Excellent food, with very nice traditional dishes. From a technical standpoint, they food was very good on almost all aspects (preparation of the food, how evenly everything was cut (whether it was in a salad or garnish , flavor combinations, and presentation .This was certainly a meal with character and identity, and will be a benchmark meal that I will remember for a while. Kudos to the chef and the kitchen staff for keeping this up for as long as you have.While I give 5 stars for the food (and it truly was good , I provide just 3 critiques from the night (where I think I ordered 8 dishes? .1. there was a salt problem. The thick cut beef tongue was definitely undersalted. Almost perfect, but just a tiny tiny bit of extra salt would have brought the flavor out way more. On the other hand, the chicken thigh was oversalted (during the dry brine stage, not during cooking .2. Holy mackerel that beef tendon beef tongue miso stew is one of my all time favorite Japanese dishes and you guys nailed it! However, you served it with this dry, crusty bread. With all due respect, I think that's a mistake. I'm glad we asked for a bowl of rice, because it felt so wrong eating that slightly stale crunchy bread with such an amazing stew. I would highly recommend you forget the bread and just provide a small portion of rice to complement the stew.3. There was something weird going on with the dashi used in the ochazuke...I don't know how to describe the flavor, but it felt oddly smokey and had a very strange flavor. I'm sorry I can't describe it any better, but I really had a hard time swallowing that one.These 3 critiques are heavily overshadowed by the very clean and impeccable technique, fantastic service, and a very nice coursing style which allows me to really appreciate each dish. Stars of the show were the mozuku, mizuna, beef tendon/tongue miso stew, and zaru soba. I will be coming back for sure, thank you!Oh, atmosphere gets only 4 stars because that small space could definitely benefit from some sound dampening foam on the ceiling."