The Best Onigiri Are All About the Rice

At these Los Angeles spots, creative Japanese rice balls inspired by home cooking are made to order.

LOS ANGELES — I get loyalty cards from nail salons, coffee shops and carwashes, but the only one I can ever keep safe is from Jichan’s Onigiri-ya in Monterey Park. The busy rice ball shop sells warm, tender, generously filled onigiri shaped to order, and after collecting 10 stamps on its cards of goofy, grinning, cartoon onigiri, diners get a single rice ball on the house. It’s just a few bites, but it’s a thrill. Will my bonus onigiri be stained purple with salty, pickled plums, and wrapped in a giant, frilly-edged perilla leaf? Or will it hold a piece of silky broiled salmon, the edges of the rice dark and crisp from the grill? I’m drawn to the onigiri made with rice that’s soaked in dashi, but if the pickled eggplant onigiri is on the menu, everything else just fades away. When Jichan’s owners, Joe Miyano and Akira Yoshimura, were growing up, onigiri was their comfort food. Mr. Miyano’s grandfather, who grew and pickled his own plums in Chiba, shaped onigiri with homemade umeboshi for his grandson’s breakfast. The owners were also inspired by Musubi Cafe Iyasume, a chain that specializes in Hawaiian-style rice balls, known as musubi.