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Tracing a Los Angeles Treasure: Its Glorious Sprawl of Sushi
The New York Times
Few locales outside Japan can equal the variety, skill and creativity served at the city’s countless sushi counters.
LOS ANGELES — “Kinki from Hokkaido,” says Yohei Matsuki, a little muffled through his mask, entrusting you with a piece of seared rockfish nigiri. He won’t bore you with the details, which would take longer to share than this mouthful takes to chew.
But he knows that this particular rockfish was pulled from a long line in the waters off northeastern Hokkaido. That its coral skin is flawless because he sliced it with a scary-sharp knife, yes, but also because it was never crushed in the squirms of a bulging net.
He knows this because he knows who caught the rockfish, and when, and the method by which it was killed, and the route by which it arrived in Los Angeles, and then to the door of his West Hollywood restaurant, Sushi Ginza Onodera.