Sakura Japanese Restaurant: A Must for Sushi Lovers

Hungry diners start lining up outside Sakura Japanese Restaurant on Centinela Avenue around 5 p.m. every day waiting for the doors  to open at 5:30 p.m. 

They know this popular restaurant, which seats 50 people, fills up fast and with good reason: It offers excellent sushi at reasonable prices. You may have to wait awhile to be seated if you don’t time your visit right. We arrived at 6 p.m. and had to wait about 30 minutes before finally being seated in a comfortable booth.

The atmosphere is casual and lively. Customers easily interact with the friendly staff. I get the feeling Sakura has quite a loyal customer base, passed on through the generations, as it's been open for six decades.

Only a few feet away from our table I watched three sushi chefs concentrating intently and artfully preparing raw fish, rice and vegetables into edible creations. The sushi bar faces you as you walk into the restaurant. A few seats are available at the bar for those patrons who enjoy a front row seat to the show.

We began our meal with oshitashi, boiled spinach with bonito flakes, which was somewhat disappointing. I don’t think there was any seasoning on the spinach and after adding some soy sauce it still wasn’t great. My mother, who is half-Japanese, makes a similar (and superior) dish, mixing ground sesame seeds into the spinach with soy sauce and a bit of sugar. So to be fair, I might be a bit biased to the sesame flavor from my mother’s recipe.

The fried agedashi tofu, which came in a little bit of broth, was excellent though. It looked as though the tofu had been cooked in a light tempura batter. I expected it to be crunchy because the menu didn’t state that it would be served in a broth, but it was very tasty so I can’t complain.

Next came a platter of mixed sushi, heavy on the avocado rolls for us vegetarians. The rice was moist and perfectly cooked and the bite-sized slices disappeared quickly. My friend said that both the yellowtail and salmon were buttery smooth and tasted very fresh. The portions of fish were quite generous. He noticed that the salmon was cut carefully, displaying a beautiful chevron pattern.

Classic Japanese dishes such as chicken teriyaki, beef sukiyaki, and shrimp and vegetable tempura are also offered on the menu. Next time, I think I’ll try a big bowl of vegetable udon soup (thick Japanese noodles) and tamago (sweet egg custard).

I’m trying to skip dessert these days, but green tea ice cream and a variety of flavors of mochi ice cream are available. My kids love these round orbs of sweet frozen creaminess, wrapped in a thin layer of pounded sticky rice. I’m sure some adults do as well.

Note: Don’t confuse Sakura Japanese Restaurant with Sakura House (also in the 90066 area, on Washington Boulevard), which doesn’t serve sushi.

Sakura Japanese Restaurant, 4545 South Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90066, 310-822-7790. 

Tuesday -Friday 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m., Saturday 5 p.m.-10 p.m. and Sunday  5 p.m.-9:30 p.m.