R and I don't presently enjoy the luxury of a functional stove - ours leaks gas and the landlord is taking his sweet time with replacing it, so we're living on mixed nuts, bananas, coffee and herbal tea. Occasionally I cheat and eat a block of cheese. Craving something more substantial and exotic, we went in search of sushi. There's a very helpful website in the States called Yelp.com, quite similar to Hello Peter back home. People rate services, restaurants and so on. It pointed us in the direction of Hide Sushi, a real Japanese restaurant in Little Osaka, a growing Japanese pocket of Culver City. It was absolutely packed, so we put our names down on the list and wandered the street (Sawtelle Bouleward) looking at all of the other restaurants - Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Chinese...and a pizzeria (random as milk). Eventually we got a great table at Hide. It's dimly lit, and has a beautiful cherry blossom ceiling decal. A good sign that a sushi restaurant is good, and genuine, is when it has Japanese chefs and clientele, of which there were both, and it really was so good!
As part of your meal, you get miso soup, and small accompiments.
The miso soup was yummy!
We both got teriyaki and sashimi combos. I had salmon teriyaki with tuna sashimi. It was the best sashimi I've ever had, hands down, no competition. We also got the 'Dynamite scallops' to share, mainly because everyone else was eating it. These were SO good: scallops and mushrooms in a creamy sauce topped off with salmon roe and baked. Words can't do it justice. Come to LA, go to Hide and order it. You'll see.
R was craving ice-cream, as she does, so we went to a teahouse just around the corder and got some ice-cream and macaroon sandwiches. I was too full to have one, but they were so pretty I just had to take a picture.
Another interesting, exploratory day in LA.
Missing home today, and thinking of everyone having the time of their lives at Oppi. I'm having too much of a good time to want to be there instead of here, but I'm still missing you!
xx