I keep saying that I plan to post my write-up of our dinner at Tenant in Minneapolis at the start of June and also my remaining reports from Seoul in February and March—to say nothing of the last report from New York in May; but here again, instead, is another report from our current trip to California (which will end soon). There’s a whole bunch of these reports as well: after a week in Southern California, we drove north for another week and are now back in Seal Beach for a few days before returning to Minnesota and we’ve been eating out a lot everywhere in the state. I’d rather make a small dent in the pile of reports from these meals before getting back home and finishing up with that older backlog at leisure. Here, therefore, is another report from Los Angeles’ County’s South Bay, and it features sushi.

On our recent trips, our sushi eating in the South Bay has largely happened at Nozomi in Torrance (see here for my most recent report). On this trip, however, we tried a new place in Redondo Beach: Sushi Chitose. Like Nozomi, this is not one of LA’s temples of sushi, featuring omakase meals that can set you back a large car payment or more. This is not a baller/bromakase sushi restaurant and no one brags about eating here. It does, nonetheless, have a reputation for serving good sushi at a reasonable price point, and that is always a welcome thing—especially in the current Los Angeles sushi economy which, as I’ve noted before, is totally out of control at the high end.

Despite its lack of temple of sushi vibe, Sushi Chitose is not either a restaurant that serves a grab bag of Japanese food or a long list of baroque rolls. Since the pandemic they have been open only for dinner and only by reservation and the menu is spare. There is an omakase for $75, there is a midsize list of nigiri and a smaller list of cut and hand rolls, and there are a few side dishes on offer. That’s it. No teriyaki or tempura combos, no sashimi etc. etc. So if you’re making a reservation, it is to eat sushi.

The omakase is the obvious play here. That $75 gets you 15 items which is almost unheard of now in Los Angeles. And if you’re getting the omakase you should probably sit at the large, attractive bar that dominates the room. As we had the boys with us, we chose instead to sit at one of the tables. The missus and I each got the omakase. We sacrificed the element of interaction with the chef that makes omakase so pleasurable and we were also not served the pieces one at a time—but as interested as the boys have become in sushi, a table is easier with them.

The missus and I shared a small appetizer of ankimo (monkfish liver) to start and then the omakase got underway. First up, was a small plate of albacore, thickly sliced and presented with pickled cucumber and kelp. A nice start to the proceedings. Next up was a platter that featured seven pieces of nigiri: zuke (bluefin tuna), kanpachi/amberjack, king salmon belly, madai (Japanese snapper), o-toro (bluefin tuna belly), hamachi (yellowtail) and hagatsuo (Japanese skipjack). All were quite good, the kanpachi, madai and hagatsuo were the standouts. While we were eating these the younger boy ate an order (2 pcs) each of sockeye salmon and shrimp and the older boy worked his way through 2 pcs each of squid, sweet shrimp, yellowtail and albacore. They also split a tuna cut roll. They enjoyed all of it.

Next up on the omakase was a smaller plate of four pieces: hotate (Japanese scallop), sweet shrimp, engawa (flounder) topped with uni (sea urchin roe), and ikura (salmon roe). The salmon roe were a bit flat but the rest were very good. The boys meanwhile ate an order each of yellowtail and snow crab (the older boy) and an order each of king salmon belly and snow crab (the younger boy) and split a yellowtail cut roll. The younger boy then added on a bowl of miso soup while the heads of the sweet shrimp from his brother’s previous plate and from our omakase came back. The boy had chosen to have both of his fried to a crisp; the missus got hers that way too while I got mine in miso soup.

And then the last round of fish in the omakase. This featured a blue crab hand roll (very good), unagi (sea eel, very good) and tamago (baked egg, quite good). We should have been done at this point but the older boy wanted a piece of ikura and since they’re two to an order, I put aside my lack of enthusiasm for the piece on the omakase and split and order with him (it was about the same). Being greedy, I also added on a spicy scallop hand roll and it was quite good. Thhe missus and I were then served little scoops of black sesame ice cream to close out the omakase. This was rather good.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and what we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see how much it all cost, for thoughts on service and to see what’s coming next.

All of the above plus a cup of green tea and a small Sapporo, tax and tip came to just about $400. Which is, as I say, pretty good value in Los Angeles these days for good sushi. And good sushi is what this is. None of it was anything amazing or anything out of the ordinary—and the nigiri were not overly large pieces—but it’s good fish at a good price. You could do a lot worse here and pay a lot more. As for us, our high-end omakase days are probably behind us. So if you know of other places in Sushi Chitose’s category, please recommend them for our next visit.

Alright, my next report really will be of one of the remaining Seoul meals. That’ll probably be on Friday and then I’ll have another on the weekend. The Tenant report will go up next Tuesday. I think.