A Platinum Chirashi Experience
As you may or may not now, we are extremely loyal customers to Tsujita LA Artisan Noodle, a very popular tsukemen restaurant in Sawtelle. Tsujita owns several sister tsukemen restaurants and we just found out recently that they also own a sushi restaurant right by Tsujita LA Artisan on Sawtelle Blvd. So naturally, we had to try it out.
Sushi Tsujita is well known for their chirashi and omakase which they do for both lunch and dinner. Their lunch omakase is $80; whereas, omakase for dinner is $200… a pretty sizable discrepancy. We decided to save omakase for another time and instead, try their Bara-Chirashi Platinum.
The interior of the restaurant is very cool and minimal. The walls and ceilings are made up of bamboo slats cut out into different triangular shapes with nice warm light and wooden furniture. The sushi bar has a very minimal setup with each setting perfectly set with chopsticks and a napkin all the way down the bar. Behind the sushi bar are several booths for table seating.
We got to sit right in front of one of the sushi chefs and watch him prepare everyone’s meals. The attention to detail that was given to every dish he touched was extremely admirable and captivating. We both watched as he carefully placed ingredients onto their plates and then meticulously rearranged them so that everything sat just right.
Before we were served the piece de resistance, we had an incredible dashi soup that comes with the chirashi. The dashi was simple yet so complex — the broth was peppery, bitter, citrusy, smoky, and salty, all of which complimented the seafood flavors perfectly. The bits of shiso leaves, along with the fishcake and seaweed were complimented so nicely by the small rinds of yuzu floating around in the broth. We could drink 10 of these.
The Platinum Bara Chirashi came with tuna, white fish, toro, ikura, kohada, unagi, clam, shrimp, and uni. It was the most beautiful chirashi arrangement we’ve ever seen. Along with the fish that was beautifully layered on top of the rice, there were cubes of cucumber, tamago, sliced shiso leaf, and small strips of seaweed that all added a wonderful color to the presentation. Before we started digging in, we were told by our waitress that the rice had been dressed with unagi sauce and that the fish had already been tossed in soy sauce. This was interesting and unlike any chirashi we’ve had in the past. Every piece of fish was top-tier fresh and delicious. Though it was obvious that the fish was on point, it was a challenge to try and enjoy the natural dankness of high-quality fish because of all the different flavors that were going on. With every bite of fish, you’d get a mouthful of seaweed, shiso and cucumber. While there’s no doubt it tasted delicious, we found all the extra ingredients to be a little distracting. One of our favorite aspects about sushi is that there is so much to be enjoyed in the simplicity and minimal nature of it. You don’t need much (a little bit of soy sauce and wasabi) to enjoy all the natural flavor of high-quality fish.
Sushi Tsujita was amazing. We will definitely be coming back to try their omakase soon. While we undoubtedly enjoyed our chirashi, we decided that the specific type of chirashi they serve there (Bara Chirashi) isn’t really for us. This style of chirashi is a little bit closer to a luxury poke with adornment and sauces all tossed together to accompany the fish and rice. When it comes to sushi and chirashi, we are definitely purists and prefer something like Miura. Nice cuts of fish on top of rice and nothing more.
Sushi Tsujita
2006 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025
