037 – Haru Sushi Cafe

all the pictures i take are great, but i’m especially proud of this one

My irresponsible and offensive roommate’s reign of terror will soon be over; at the end of the week he will depart for northern parts unknown. Before roommate number two (soon to be roommate number one) and I are free of this dictator he is taking us on a food tour of the city. Tonight we followed Monday’s Father’s Office trip with a visit to Haru Sushi Cafe.

The spot can be found at 480 S San Vicente Blvd in Beverly Grove, and somehow my evil roommate has an in with Haru herself. At one point I thought he was asking the young woman to turn the heat down (it was really hot), and all of a sudden she’s bringing us free hot sake (not quite as hot). What a sneaky mastermind! I’ve never really spent a lot of personal time with sake (I keep my temple clean) but it was an enjoyable alcoholic excursion. I don’t think I’ll seek it out in the future, but the next time a restaurateur offers us some for free, I will partake.

We started off with a few appetizers: seaweed salad, eggplant carpaccio, and edamame. The eggplant was delicious, though it was a little tough to get a handle on with the chopsticks. The seaweed salad was a little disappointing – especially after it got talked up a bunch – but it was not bad by any means. And edamame is edamame; you have to try really hard to screw that up.

Now we get to the sush’. We started off with a couple pieces of yellowtail, followed closely by the Incredible (“spicy tuna and avocado roll covered with seared salmon, served with creamy mayo and sesame dressing”) and Albacore Onion (“spicy tuna with avocado roll covered with albacore, topped with lightly fried onion strips”) rolls. The Incredible wasn’t quite incredible, but it was really good. And while the albacore itself was very tasty, the fried nature of the onions turned me off a little bit.

We weren’t done just yet. Next up were the Island roll (“shrimp tempura and crab roll covered with salmon and avocado, served with soy citrus dressing”) and Haru’s Cucumber Wrap (“salmon, yellowtail, spicy tuna, scallions and avocado roll, wrapped with cucumber”). The Island roll easily won the night; the combination of the tempura and the citrus gave it a really refreshing flavor and texture that stood out form everything else. The cucumber wrap was definitely one of the more interesting dishes we had, but I think the lack of rice prevented it from really hitting. It sure did have a ton of fish in it though.

Overall my Haru experience was very positive. The service was great (we’ll see what happens if I ever go back without my conniving roommate), and – even though the prices were a little high – the quality was top-notch. I probably won’t get as much tuna next time though. Hell, I probably ate enough of that tonight to last me the year. Haru Sushi Cafe gets a hearty recommendation from this guy.