Kappo Seafood
1757 W. Carson St., #S,
Torrance, CA, 90501

Most of our birthday/anniversary restaurants that might provide kaiseki
dinner have dried up and blowed away.

Koto, near Orange County airport was bought to make way for an office
building. It was Prime real estate and they got an offer they couldn't
refuse. They were the best around for that. Kitayama's amazing chef,
Shirai-san started up his own place Kappo Sui, which is a fabulous
restaurant. Unfortunately the leaves Kitayama without a conspicuous
entry in the kaiseki department. Or so it's been for a few years, I
haven't checked lately.

Abe Sushi was doing one, reportedly somewhat pedestrian, but at least
not over-priced, in Newport Beach. But they recently
remodeled/revamped and perhaps changed hands, I'm unsure. The dining
room and wait staff really didn't seem a good fit, patient, quiet,
attentive, for full bore kaiseki anyway.

We heard that Kappo Seafood in Torrance was excellent. We tried to
stop by a few times but they close earliar than we expected, and were
dark at 9:30 on a a Saturday. Halloween is my birthday, and we booked
in advance and everything.

The short verison: fabulous.

The long version:

I'll cover the nihonshu first as that's damend important to me: A very
unusual aspect of their sake menu: I was aware of only 3 or 4 of the
lower priced entries. My known "special" sakes were on the bottom of
their menu. So I worked my way up from there and tried a total of
three: the house "Kappo Seafood" (which I think might have been Aramasa
junmai. I'm guessing this cause I have a jumbo bottle of it right now
at home and it has that woody, "raspy" quality that I find a bit
off-putting for the first cup or two. I found, at home, when I took it
out of the icebox to make way for another recently acquired bottle
which I prefer, that unrefrigered I like it much better. That's a big
suprise, since I like all my sake chilled. Snooping on line I found it
one of the very few that is recommended at room temperature or warmed,
but not chilled. So anyway their "Kappo Seafood" brand of sake tasted a
lot like Aramasu.

The next two we had blew me away and I'm trying to find them in a
home-delivery service if anyone has a recommendation in that regard.
I've used www.sake.nu, but they had neither of thiese. The first was
Toranoko which is precisely my kind of "floral", slightly sweet and
very complex sake. The next was Jyouzen which was lighter and more
transparent, but still a very delicate and charming sake. I'm looking
for them both retail with no luck so far.

The meal was absolutely stunning, one of the best I've ever had.

Starter - Homemade peanut tofu with a sliver of abalone on the side.
Wonderful.

Appetizer plate. This is what I usually like best in kaiseki for
variety, novely, creativity. They brought it. Pacific saury in a slice
of pressed sushi, a micro-bowl of what might have been ankimo, but it
was actually angler-fish liver, not monkfish. As such more delicate in
flavor. Seasoned duck breast-meat, unheated, firm exploding-taste with
plenty of fatty charm. deep-fried asparagus in a tiny roll with
"laver", which in this case was very thick but not chewy seaweed. Baked
taro potato topped with miso paste, which was gnocchi-like with a miso
was different and tasty. The "plating", as they say, was a delight.

Sashimi: Two units of each: Uni which was undoubtedly nestled in it's
home cored-out and put on my plate. As fresh, firm and of-a-piece as
any I've ever had. Toro which was quite red and marbled like kobe beef.
Very fatty and firm. Unusual. I almost didn't eat the second piece,
as I knew how long a kaiseki dinner can be, and if you don't pace
yourself you can be stuck simply watching the last few plates go by
with a sad and mournful look on your face. Also hamachi that was
two-toned and very firm indeed. All were exceptional in texture and
freshness.

Soup: 'Tis the season for matsutake and there it was. I've been
drinking this stuff for about 12 years. Since most of my dining is
omakase, I inevitably a bowl in front of me, and I've always enjoyed
it. Three weeks ago I had some on a cool night with friends at
Taru-Sushi in Costa Mesa (in my top 3 now) and it was the best ever. I
just couldn't keep from pouring it, and since I was splitting in with
my wife I couldn't help but greedily counting cups. Eating the
mushrooms, shrimp, ginnan and all in the pot, all very well and good
but it was the soup I really wanted. At Kappo Seafood it was almost
the same thing. But the drifting units of mitsuba that would come out
of the teapot and halfed yuzu, fresh, that I used for a little spritz
in each cup. It was joyful. I've concluded that I like matsutake much
more, it's grown on me over the years. There is now a little portion
of my brain that knows and longs for matsutake. And so this truly
satisfied.

Simmered Dish: Whitefish cake with chopped matsutake wrapped with yubu
(tofu skin), simmered eggplant and small simmered potato. All very
personal and tasty. Everybody's got their fish cake; theirs is
outstanding; very fresh and not too firm, and the yubu was a great
wrapper, much more firm than I expect with yubu. The eggplant I
practically swallowed whole. These simmered dishes should be more
delved into. The sauces they simmer these things in make them so very
appealing to the nose and palate.

Baked Dish: Shioyaki aji. Just as tasty as salt-grilled mackeral could
every be. Two pickles; one a baby ginger shoot and the other looked to
be a few round slices of baby daikon, with little sliver of fresh yuzu
peel on it. We both considered it a highpoint, as simple as it was, of
the evening. Appealed to something very low in our code. We love all
the shiny fishes (hikarimono) usually oily and rich tasting. This
really paid off.

Deep Fried Dish: I always look forward to that basic American Guy
pay-off at kakiage time. This time I found two oysters, tempura to be
sure, but floating in a sauce that softened them up. So no crunch. Aw
gee. A bit disappointed I ate my oyster and holy moly what a sublime
taste. The best tasting prepared oyster I ever had, hand's down. The
tempura and the sauce just popped all the oyster taste right out.
Trancendent, and I know--for chrissake it's a tempura oyster. Still it
rocked.

Vinegar Dish: I always find the sunomono dish somewhat pedestrian and
certainly sassy, but how impressive can it be? Well they paired the
chopped cucuumber with little one-inch long pencils of baked eel. The
eel was really great with the vinegared stuff. Not a revelation or
anything, but a surprise and a taste one.

With the last course you could choose rice, soup and tsukemono
(pickles), or you could have cold green tea noodles. The rice mentioned
"with seasoned young sardine", and as I say we are hikarimono nuts so
we both went for the rice course. A smart move. The rice WAS a
revelation, it had micro-sardine young--only minutes from being roe no
doubt. Tiny little things together with very finely chopped shiso
leaf. Both items were so small it almost looked like the rice was
lightly colored. And tasted *fabulous*. The tsukemono were very good,
including eggplant and other stuff. I didn't expect to eat much of
anything at this point but got through about half of it anyway.

Dessert: We assumed whatever dessert was proffered we would pass. We
don't usually eat desert and we were quite fool. She brought a
light-yellow jello-like stuff with a cream on top of it with some
shards of strawberry and mint on the side. Easily forgotten. We asked
what it was, and she said it's a "mustard dessert". We asked twice
more and I watched her lips. Well we had to try a mustard desert!
Man, do these people know where our jugular is: it was a muscat jello.
And mostly muscat. We first encountered muscat grapes, whole a fresh,
on Shiraishi Island off off Okayama and I thought I was going to eat
until I hurt myself. I stopped only to gasp for air. They are the most
amazing fresh fruit I've ever had. Last November we were in Okayama
City and we went looking for a grocery as our first priority to run
some muscat grapes down. And we got two bunches, one to eat on the
spot, and one to eat on the bus on the way back to the hotle. Clearly
we inhailed this dessert. The cream sauce was a wonderful compliment.

Excellent high-quality sencha tea to finish. We engaged our
late-waiter, our early-waiter was involved with other tasks. They were
all very impressed that we knew the names of everything and weren't
frightened or demanding. He said, "I love the way you talk!" When we
pumped him he clarified: We talked slowly, directly, we looked at him,
we didn't mumble and cover our mouths. He said it made him feel like he
understood English much better. Actually his English appeared quite
good to us. He's from Kyoto and it turned out we had eaten at some of
the same places on Kawaramachi-Dori. It made us feel really good.

The evening was a dramatic success. The price per person was $85 for
the "special course dinner". We had another $40 in sake. It wasn't
cheap. But then I don't get a birthday and a generous wife every day
of the year.

We'll be going back to check out more simple dinners and the sushi bar
of course. From our dining experience I assume the sushi bar is
fabulous. We only heard one party speaking any English. The tatami
rooms seemed quite full and consitutue about a third of their floor
space. Gauging from the quality of footwear by the tatami rooms, the
clothing at the sushi bar, and the cars in the parking lot, I don't
imagine there is anything that could be considered "inexpensive" about
the place. But we've never been a fan of high-volume low-dollar dining
anyway. Anyway I'll have to go back to explore their nihonshu menu; as
I said there are probably another 15 types of sake I've never even seen
before.

FYI, Kappo Seafood is across the parking lot from Musha, one of the
best Izakaya restaurants in the area, reasonably priced, and around the
corner from Beaux ("booze") which has a great classy bar and serves
some exceptional Japanese-style pasta and many other exceptional
treats. There's also a karaoke-room place in the strip with what my
friends and I have decided is one of the best English-language
selection in the area. And a few other joints I've yet to try.

Kappo Seafood
1757 W. Carson St., #S,
Torrance, CA, 90501

Their site:
http://www.kapposeafood.com/ (There is an English button, but it
didn't work for me.)

Their listing elsewhere in English:
http://www.japaneserestaurantinfo.com/kapposeafood/
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