Hide All Day

My friend eating partner Mika is back in town, so when I asked her what she wanted, her answer was "real Japanese food, made by Japanese people". Since most places are closed between lunch and dinner, we were prepared for our food craving to go unsatisfied, but since the Korean place we were going to was closed on Thursday (?!?!?!) we looked up and down Sawtelle to find something open.

When we saw the OPEN sign at Hide Sushi, we couldn't believe a Japanese restaurant was open for business at 4pm! They are the ONLY good sushi place open all afternoon on the Westside that I know of, so anyone who knows of any others, please leave a comment and let me know about any other Japanese restaurants open all afternoon between lunch and dinner.

Since we had eaten hardly anything all day (I ate a peach), we were famished. Mika ordered the combination of sashimi and teriyaki steak, with two sushi rolls of pickled radish and roots (the yellow and brown cut rolls in the pictures. I ordered albacore, halibut, spanish mackeral, and yellowtail sushi, along with a yellowtail and scallion cut roll.

Mika's combination dinner included the Sunomono (cucumber salad) with shrimp.



The combination dinner also included a wonderfully rich miso soup with tofu and seaweed.


The tuna sashimi in the dinner combination was the freshest I have ever had in a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles; it was amazing that this came with a set dinner with teriyaki for only $14.


I ordered 2 orders of spanish mackeral and this was also some of the freshest I have eaten in Los Angeles. I especially liked that the ponzu sauce was served separately in a bottle on the table, so you could add as much or little as you wished to your sushi. The only fault I found was the fish was not expertly molded to the sushi rice, but for the quality of the fish, this was a superb.


My two orders of halibut and one of albacore were very good, but the pieces were a bit big and once again the fish did not adhere to the rice.


Mika liked her rolls, and I found nothing to dislike about the yellowtail sushi or yellowtail roll with scallions other than the loose rice wrapping. It was also good to see they served fresh ginger that was not commercially jarred.


The least stellar of all the dishes was the teriyaki steak, which would have been good if it had not been cooked so well done.

All in all, this was a fabulous place for fresh sushi if you don't mind the less than perfect sushi techniques and the overcooked meat. An impressive side note here was the waiter (a Caucasian) spoke Japanese to the sushi chefs and clients. Our entire feast including hot tea came out to less than $58 for BOTH of us, but they only accept cash to keep their prices down, so keep that in mind when you come here because, you will want to come here.