Nanciful’s Blog

This past weekend, I went to Hama Sushi in Little Tokyo with the Hubs and my sister. Thank God this time they reminded me to take pictures before I started eating or I would have to write another "Worst Food Blogger Hits Again" entry.

Hama Sushi is my new favorite restaurant. It’s a tiny sushi joint located in Little Tokyo, right next to Sushi Komasa. I use to frequent Komasa quite a bit. However, sometime last year, I developed an aversion to sashimi. Every time I saw a piece of raw fish, I wanted to gag. It was truly a dark time in my life…..I was horrified at my distaste for one of my favorite foods. But now, my love for sushi came rushing back at me when we visited Hama Sushi and I want to eat sushi any chance I get.

Hama Sushi serves traditional sushi, sashimi type items only. There are no teriyaki chicken, curry udon or mabo tofu ramen etc. There are no dymanite rolls or Aladdin rolls or Jafar rolls and the like. Just good old sushi bar items.

This is my second time there and both times we sat at the bar. There is only about 18-20 seats at the sushi bar and a side room that has 2 tables, seating 4 people and 6 people. So yeah…very cozy. My favorite so far is the spicy tuna hand roll. Just plain rice and delicious spicy tuna.  The spiciness doesn’t overpower the roll so you don’t have to make that too-much-wasabi or Sricha sauce face. I love that the chef just hands the roll to us as soon as he is done. No stands, no pretty plates. Just….here ya go!

We also ordered saba (mackerel), uni, and tuna albacore.

My sister ordered the clam miso soup. It was delicious. Not too salty and not too clammy. The soup was written on the whiteboard outside the restaurant so I’m not sure if they have this everyday. We saw a whole bunch of people ordering the soup so we had to jump on the bandwagon.

The Hubs saw yellowtail collar on the whiteboard as well and wanted to try it. This took me completely by surprise because he is a chicken-strips-criss-cut-fries type of lad. But boy am I glad that we ordered it because it was out of this world. There is so much succulent meat in that thing and none of it was fatty. It was just lightly seasoned with ponzu, green onions and daikon.

Next up is the spider roll. I saw our neighbor’s plate and just had to have some. Usually the spider roll that I get from other sushi restaurants have to much batter, making it too crunchy. But this one was just the opposite. The crab shell was just slightly crunchy on the outside and the meat inside was nice and juicy. I saw the chef create it, he just took the crab, put it in the sushi roll while it was flat, added some maguro, cucumber, rolled it up and voila!

By this time the Hubs and my sister was getting full. But the spider roll was so good that I had to order the soft shell crab by itself. I could have eaten another dozen.

We had some sake and Sapporo with our meal and the damage came to around $95 including tax and tip for 3 people. Not bad for some world class sushi. Hama Sushi is currently on my top 5 right now. Try it, you won’t regret it.