Omakase at Morinoya - a fancy seafood feast

Morinoya is the new venture of chef Takayuki Morishita, who was also the head chef of Place Yuu that closed last year. I was pretty excited that he decided to continue serving his creations in Sawtelle. Morinoya now offers a wide variety of dishes, including yakitori, oden, small plates, sushi and sashimi. It even offers two kinds of 8-course omakase menu, a $45 version and a $70 version that requires advanced reservation. We tried the $45 omakase this time.

The first dish was cucumber, yam with plum sauce. I liked the yam but the plum sauce was too intense for me. 

Second course was toro with white flounder. It's just alright as one can expect from an izakaya. 

Third course was fried chicken cartilages. It is very crunchy and delicious with the salt but there is a little too much volume for each person. In retrospect, this dish is kind of an odd detour from the rest of the all seafood course menu. 

The fourth dish was uni chawanmushi. It's my favorite item in the course. The egg custard was silky smooth and matches perfectly with the sea urchin. There is a shrimp in the bottom of the cup to provide a change of scenery with a different kind of seafood flavor. It's as if I had the entire ocean in my mouth.

Next was braised kinki fish. It requires much chopstick skills so it's not good for a date :P The fish was perfectly cooked. The soy sauce is a little bit too salty; I wish there is a bowl of rice that came with this.

The sixth dish was soup.

The soup has shrimp and fish cake in it. It was good to wash off the strong flavors of the fish. 

The seventh and last savory dish was mixed rice with unagi and egg. The fresh water eel is fatty with great grilled flavor. Even though I was quite full, I still managed to finish it because of how good it was.

Dessert was sesame ice cream and matcha pudding. The sesame ice cream was Maeda-en stuff (good) but the green tea pudding was great. It had a good matcha kick to it and goes great with the sweet red bean paste.

The omakase course at Morinoya was quite interesting. I enjoyed the seafood and the dessert. It kinda reminds me to go try Wakasan again. I hope we'll see more omakase menus from more restaurants in the future.

Morinoya
(second floor of Olympic Collection)
11301 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 210
Los Angeles, CA 90064