Here is the last of my meal reports from our recent trip to Los Angeles. I began those trip reports with an account of a very expensive omakase dinner at Mori and so it’s appropriate that the last one be of a quick lunch closer to the opposite end of the sushi continuum in Los Angeles: at Sushi Go 55, an unassuming restaurant in a mall in Little Tokyo that serves largely people who work in nearby businesses and for which no one (well, no one who is not on Yelp or Tripadvisor) has ever made any strong claims. We were going to be in the area and needed a quick place for lunch and given how poor the sushi scene in the Twin Cities is, were more than willing to roll the dice on an affordable fourth or fifth tier place in L.A. And wouldn’t you know it, the meal was, on the whole, superior to all my sushi outings in the Twin Cities, and far cheaper.

That’s not to say, of course, that this is sushi that is going to blow your mind. The fish was all of acceptable quality but you’re not going to get here the attention to detail or the high quality rice and seaweed that you are not paying for. As such I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time describing the meal. I’ll note, however, that you can do a lot worse for the price even in L.A—I’d certainly pick it again over standing in line forever for Sushi Gen’s sashimi combo at lunch—and that their offerings go beyond merely the standard-issue fish. On the whole, a good budget sushi option when downtown—and frankly, for the fish alone probably almost as good as Nori (though the ambience at Nori is better).

The best deal here is probably the chirashi. My memory is failing me now but I think there might be a couple of options. The missus got one that ran about $17 and it was quite a lot of decent fish for the money. It is served strikingly in double decker bowls, with the fish up top on a bed of slivered radish and the rice, ginger and other stuff in the lower bowl. Get one of those and that’s probably enough for someone who’s not very hungry. Or get one of the sushi combos (I got the $14’ish one which includes five pieces of nigiri plus a handroll) and add on a few pieces a la carte. As always, we made this a little more expensive than it needed to be but that’s because of how sushi-starved we are in Minnesota. Still, with everything we got, the bill, including tax and tip, was $75. My nigiri-only share of that was about $33, and got me 11 pieces of nigiri (including acceptable uni and scallops) plus a handroll. I call that good value. You may too. Or you may think me a fool with inconsistent standards. Your call.

To see everything we got click on an image to launch the slideshow.

The restaurant is located on the third floor of a particularly soulless mall, alongside a bunch of other Asian restaurants.

It’s a windowless place that’s not going to win any design awards

Both combos came with serviceable miso soup and a bunch of pickled veg (which was a nice touch).

Big bowl of fish.

With the rice etc. below.

There are a few sushi combos. This one was $14.50, I think.

Decent bigeye tuna.

The yellowtail was okay and, in a general sign of the care taken with the lunch combo, had some of the sesame seeds sprinkled on the neighbouring salmon on it as well.

The salmon was decent as well.

As was the snapper.

The albacore was pedestrian.

As was the mayo-heavy blue crab hand roll. This concluded the sushi combo–everything after this was ordered a la carte (2 pcs at a time).

The kanpachi/amberjack was okay.

The scallop was decent.

As was the monkfish liver (though it wasn’t the most generous portion of liver).

The uni was surprisingly good–which is not to say it was great.

A bunch of Delhi reviews still to come and some Hong Kong reviews when we get there—in February it’ll be back to the blog’s whisky-weighted regular fare.