Little Tokyo's R23 is hooked on fresh seafood
The freshest imaginable catch - and clearly the best available - distinguishes R23, a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar on the scruffy fringe of Little Tokyo in downtown L.A. Yet this isn't an Asian restaurant that emphasizes its raw nibbles to the neglect of all else; we found the cooked entrees to be every bit as good and obviously crafted with sashimi-grade seafood.
A highlight of our dinner was a four-piece serving of yellowtail sashimi, or hamachi ($10) - amazingly tender and succulent. Grouped with two-piece sushi portions of halibut and albacore ($5 each), it helped form a sensual starter course. Regrettably, we were still enjoying it when the entrees were whisked to the table. What's the rush here? (The waitress later brought the check when we'd barely begun a ginger gelato dessert.)
Shrimp tempura with vegetables ($22) was gently prepared, colossal shrimp lightly battered and cooked just enough to brown them - a welcome departure from the heavy coating and deep-fryer incineration found at some Japanese houses.
For the sauteed scallops ($22), the shellfish was sliced into medallions for more even cooking, and accompanied by a light cream sauce, shiitake mushrooms and asparagus. As tasty as
it was, this dish seemed to cool off rather quickly (makes you wonder how long it had been sitting in the kitchen before they chose to jump our first course).
R23 is housed in a restored industrial building in the rundown but recovering Artists' District, so you ascend the loading dock in an alley and enter a space that oozes character - bare brick walls, candles everywhere, Gaugin-derivative paintings on the walls, cardboard chairs designed by Frank Gehry. There is a nice view of the L.A. skyline, and a bustling sushi bar along the back wall.
At its best: The fish and shellfish taste as if they were pulled out of the Pacific an hour ago and rushed up from San Pedro under police escort.
- Eric Noland,
Daily News Staff Writer
Jun 18, 2007
