Sushi Ota

When it comes to eating sushi in San Diego, one cannot ignore the giant Sushi Ota in Mission Beach/Pacific Beach area. They are the de facto best standard in town. Hiding in a corner mall next to a gas station, it would be easy to miss if you don't know where you are going.

The big white sign helps, but it doesn't stand out too much, except for the line up of people. It is so common that, in fact I have never seen Sushi Ota without a line. Walking in without reservation is guaranteeing yourself a good 45 mins of wait. So reserve ahead of time! I have been there more than 6 times I think, and fortunate enough, half of the times I went with business customers so I did not have to pay... And ya those meals were good.

On to the important stuff. Going in you will find a row of Japanese sushi chefs (yup, no Mexican sushi chef - not trying to be racist here. I love Mexicans but you know, authentic chefs are usually better) on your right busy preparing the food. They don't have too much space in there, so adding the amount of people waiting it can get quite packed. One key thing about Ota is that the seafood there is very fresh. So fresh that it is not rare to find part of it still moving! And oh ya, fresh sweet prawn tastes really good.

Last month a couple guys from sales of Epson Toyocom came by for another round of sales pitch. My coworker Barry knew them back in Japan, and my project uses Epson's component as well, so we have legitimate reason to gather up. And man, the sales manager really knew his food well. He started us with a grand tour of raw fish (sashimi), with a special pick of ama-ebi (sweet prawn).

 

And yes, the prawns were still alive even in such a shape!

After sashimi, the manager from Epson introduced "Monk Fish Liver" dish to us. This paired very well with sake, and he picked his favourite smooth sake, the "Hakkaisan". These paired so well that at a point he was repeatedly saying "死でもいい" (it is even ok to die[after consuming this pair]). Not to that extreme, I really enjoyed this, leading to a later exuberant meal with my local friends in Sushi Ota again (more on that later).

Now on to sushi.

I liked the top right ones, which were made from preserved roots of certain plant, giving it a sour but gently refreshing taste, but did not leave my mouth dry, rather creamy. I need to find out what that is! Most sushi were good, but I really liked the left ones on the second row from the top, the 金目鯛 kin-me-dai (golden eye snapper, "splendid alfonsino"). That was another favourite pick of smooth sushi from the manager who knows how to live (on left). He really knows his stuff.

At the end of course they picked up the tap, while Barry and I did not know how much we spent, but it must be substantial.

Later on, about a couple weeks later, my friend Allan sold his shoes and got some extra dough to burn. So we headed up to Sushi Ota to have some good dinner. We started with some normal sake, but I had to order that monk fish liver again.

Those two big fat round slices were the liver. As the Epson guy was saying, "this is the 'wine and cheese'  Jappon style!" Next, of course I had to order my favourite sushi of the time, the kin-me-dai. And this is the reason I came back in such a short time, "in search of kin-me-dai".

And the other stuff. Mind you below was just my sushi and they were not shared because of the price. Usually I share my food but not this plate. I shared some of the monk fish liver though.

This was Allan's plate:

And finally, the 3 grades of tuna belly (トロ): meguro, chu-toro, o-toro (tuna, middle toro and fatty toro)

The damage was substantial to my standard. That $100 on the left was for one person (me) only!

But don't get scared off. We ordered exuberant amount of sushi. As you can tell that was even more than what the Epson guys ordered (4 of us shared that plate). If you haven't already, you gotta try them if you care about the quality of your sushi.

Sushi Ota [webpage]

Address: 4529 Mission Bay Dr., San Diego, CA 92109

Reservations: (858) 270-5670/5047

[ Yelp review ]