At 11 a.m. yesterday, Osawa opened to the public in Pasadena. The restaurant is owned by Sayuri Tachibe, who is the wife of corporate executive chef Shigefumi Tachibe of the Chaya Restaurant Group, though he isn't involved in this project, nor is Chaya. The chef at Osawa is Norio Yoshikawa.
Courtesy Osawa Interior of Osawa in Pasadena
Adding a sixth location to the growing sushi empire, SugarFish has expanded to Beverly Hills. And, why not? We're pretty sure there are still a few tuna and yellowtail swimming around in the ocean. Also opening in about two weeks is Bar Nozawa, a private dining room tucked into the back of the restaurant, run by chef-owner Kazunori Nozawa.
C. Soudry salmon sushi
It seems only fitting that L.A. Weekly's newest recurring feature, Strip Mall Rat, would begin with one of the most infamous intersections in the city: Santa Monica Blvd. and Highland Ave. The corner strip mall and surrounding sidewalk has long been known as a haven for all sorts of unsavory characters, from prostitutes and drug dealers to run-of-the-mill shady types who seem to think hanging out in front of a doughnut shop is the best way to look tough in Los Angeles. 
Farley Elliott
Well, there's more than just a Donut Time outpost at Santa Monica and Highland. Between the check cashing place, the adult bookstore and the weed dispensary is a bare-bones Indian restaurant and a funky sushi joint. There's also a corner Subway, but don't they just build those things in automatically with every new strip mall?
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California Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su has issued citations to restaurants across the state for violating various state labor laws. Urasawa, the famed sushi restaurant in Beverly Hills, was among those cited.
G. Snyder Sushi at Urasawa
According to the Commissioner, the government's investigation found that Urasawa's kitchen staff often worked 10.5 hours a day without receiving overtime pay or proper rest and meal breaks. The restaurant also failed to issue wage statements itemizing the number of hours employees worked and their rate of pay, another violation of the California Labor Code.
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A new location of the popular Sugarfish sushi chain is under construction in Calabasas, expected to open this spring in upscale shopping center The Commons. Sugarfish was launched in 2008 by renowned chef Kazunori Nozawa, who ran Sushi Nozawa in Studio City from 1985 until the restaurant closed last year. 
E. Dwass
Nozawa, who has served up sushi for more than 50 years, trained with master chefs in Tokyo. He is legendary for his strict dining rules and for eschewing American-style sushi, including California rolls and fusion dishes. The Sugarfish website says he "concentrates on the purity of his basic ingredients -- nurturing relationships with the finest fish purveyors across the globe, cutting his fish with an artisan's painstaking care, and even making his own fresh soy sauce and ponzu."
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Celebrating this year's Best of L.A. issue -- now out in print and online -- we're counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes.
via Kiriko Smoked salmon with mango
8: Smoked Salmon with Mango at Kiriko.
Few itamae balance the stylings of modern and classic sushi with the flair of Kiriko's Ken Namba. Some nights there will be plump tomato geleé or pale lozenges of skipjack topped with yuzu rind and shaved pink sea salt. He might even surprise you with a bowl of cooked tuna mashed with bits of okra, green onion and grated yamaimo, a dish that would be well received at any PTA potluck.
Kiriko is a place where it pays to be a regular -- that albacore sashimi with ponzu jelly from one night might transform into a seared filet dusted with fried garlic the next. Of course, sitting at the gorgeously rough-hewn sushi bar, all dark and mahogany, with Namba calmly doting overhead is reason enough to inspire regular visits.
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Celebrating this year's Best of L.A. issue -- now out in print and online -- we're counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes.
A. Scattergood Matsuhisa's yellowtail scallion donburi
18: Matsuhisa's Yellowtail Scallion Donburi.
You may be able to eat chef Nobu Matsuhisa's stunning Peruvian-influenced Japanese cuisine at one of his many restaurants around the world, the Nobus in Aspen or the Bahamas or London or Milan or Greece or Tokyo. (One could go on.) Or at one of the two Nobus in Los Angeles, either the palace on La Cienega in what was once L'Orangerie, or the newly opened beachside fish museum in Malibu, which Matsuhisa had built right on the Pacific. One might consider it the anti-Gladstones.
But if you want to experience the chef's food in a somewhat more comforting environment, you might stroll in off the street some lunchtime -- no reservations, no valet needed -- and sit down at the sushi bar at Matsuhisa. Matsuhisa is the chef's original restaurant, which he opened in 1987 and almost closed in 2006 when he and business partner Robert de Niro opened the Nobu just up the street. They didn't close it, for which both its regulars and the rest of the city should be profoundly grateful.
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The trend of personalized food has reached the realm of sushi. U Sushi, which opened on South Beverly Dr. last December, brings the make-your-own concept to one of L.A.'s favorite foods. U Sushi owner Jeremy Umland, who also owns Ozumo in Santa Monica Place, traces the idea for his restaurant to the pre-made packaged sushi he'd buy -- and wasn't exactly happy with. So he decided to make his own sushi, and opened U Sushi in Beverly Hills. A second store opened in San Francisco in February 2012. 
Shako Liu
Celebrating this year's Best of L.A. issue -- now out in print and online -- we're counting down, in no particular order, 100 of our favorite dishes.
G. Snyder Sashimi Special at Sushi Gen
29: Sashimi Special at Sushi Gen.
In a perfect world, every visit to your favorite sushi bar would entail an omakase meal, an ever-changing elaborate parade of courses that showcases the day's best ingredients. This, of course, is impractical for a variety of reasons. At Sushi Gen though, a humble restaurant in Little Tokyo that shows every one of its 30-plus years in business, the rare combination of market-fresh fish and impressive value has been keeping the long wooden sushi bar packed for three decades.
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Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants, or kaiten-zushi as they're known in Japan, are big business these days. You might not think so when plates of sushi are priced at just $2 each, as they are at Little Tokyo's Kula Sushi, the newest and most ambitious kaiten joint to hit the L.A. scene. But arrive on a Monday night and you'll see just how big it is -- waits of over 30 minutes are not uncommon, even when you factor in the high turnover rate that comes with customers being served via rotating belt. 
G. Snyder Shrimp Sushi at Kula
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