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Mr. Music's rundown of Sushi restaurants in Southern California

He's back with a series of scratch off notes. If you're a sushi fan, and you're in SoCal, consider the following:

There are so many sushi restaurants in Southern California!! We've tried quite a few, but we have barely scratched the surface. So far our faves are below.  Each has top notch fresh sushi, excellent rolls and delicious hand rolls as well as other yummy items.  The yellow tail and big eye tuna sushi/sashimi at each of these places are indescribably fresh and smooth. 


Boss in Beverly Hills
Best shushito peppers! In a pool of garlicky, soy sauce based yumminess.


Kampai in Long Beach
Super great prices and even better happy hour menu. Best spicy, garlic edamame. Great outside seating area.


Sushi Kinoya in Long Beach
Best owners: Martin & Iris!
Incredible sizzling tuna. Thinly sliced yellow tail sushi laid on a sizzling platter of onions, jalapeno slices and sliced garlic. I'm not usually a fan of heated sushi dishes but this is special and the tuna really doesn't get cooked!


Izaka-ya by Katsu Ya in Manhattan Beach
Best staff! We are friendly with several of the servers like Gabriel, David, Kevin, Ketu, and Phil Lynott's (ed: That would be Thin Lizzy's guitarist...) doppelganger Dylan. We are also friendly with a few of the sushi chefs and managers. The freshly brewed iced tea is so rich and refreshing. We've had avocado rolls, no meat and were blown away by them. The blue crab rolls (cooked blue crab meat in a thin layer of rice tightly wrapped in seaweed.) are fantastic. We love the tuna collar (deal of the day; at $10 a huge portion of cooked tuna in bone. There are some big bones and smaller bones you have to work around, but the reward is lots of tender, tasty fish). We loved the Spanish Mackerel and Black Seabass sushi. Cozy yet lively spot. We've been to this wonderful restaurant 25 times or more in the past few years. On our most recent trip we had something different... Wagyu beef sliders. The meat is so tasty and tender in a luscious bun with optional cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion. We also had steamed cod in miso. it tasted like Chilean seabass. Yes, cod!!

If I had to pick a favorite, it would be Izaka-ya. It has SO MUCH. I think Ms. Music would probably agree but might opt for Sushi Kinoya out of loyalty since she has been friends with Martin & Iris for many years. It's a fantastic place!

All in all, you can't go wrong with any of these great sushi spots.

- Mr. Music review
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