Before we headed off to Los Angeles, my wife Jun and I debated where to take out our longtime friend and her husband the night before our trip together to the Santa Barbara wine country. We knew her friend loves sushi but it also happened that we had visited Sushi Sho in New York in the fall that we were afraid we might be too spoiled to enjoy another sushi restaurant. At the end, we decided to focus on treating our friend and booked a reservation to Sushi Sonagi, located inside a strip mall in Gardena outside LA. At the end of the night, Jun and I were surprised just how much we loved our experience at this sushi restaurant.

The chef Daniel Son, a second-generation chef, is in charge of all of the dishes at Sushi Sonagi, which has a single counter table with two shifts per night. What really stood out about the omakase at Sushi Sonagi (the menu costs $250 per person) is chef Daniel’s openness to experimenting with ingredients not typically used at a sushi restaurant, as well as the overall balance in flavor of all the dishes. The opening dishes featured a super delicious chawanmushi with snow crab and (unexpectedly) sweet corn. The fried green eyes fish was also another delightful item on the course, as well the mackerel sandwich that Jun really enjoyed even though mackerel is not her favorite fish. My two favorite dishes before the nigiri section were the black abalone (sourced from Korea’s Jeju Island) with liver sauce – this is one delicacy that I won’t stop thinking about for a while – and monkfish liver (which had a bit of wasabi on top to a surprising effect) that would’ve held its own against ankimo at other top-end sushi restaurants.

The nigiris coming from chef Daniel’s magical touch were also of consistently high quality; Jun and I were especially impressed with how each piece wasn’t overly seasoned to maximize the texture of the fish. Some of the standout pieces wowed us with ingredients we had not encountered before, like the baby green onions that complemented beautifully with spotted skipjack tuna, or the seared flounder fin that was exceptional for its textural complexity. I certainly don’t recall having many langoustine nigiri at sushi restaurants before, and after chef Daniel brought one (from New Zealand) with wonderfully crunchy texture, I wondered why other sushi restaurants don’t try this ingredient more often. After a few more nigiri pieces and an aromatic soup of tofu, yuzu and chrysanthemum came the highlight of our dinner, a stone pot rice with female snow crab inside. The rice umami of this rice dish was so irresistible that even though I was pretty full by then, I felt compelled to ask for a second bowl. Even the tamago from Sushi Sonagi is not an ordinary egg custard, with miso butter that added an entirely different dimension to the dish.

Getting a reservation at Sushi Sonagi, given its popularity in the LA dining scene and also limited seatings (the restaurant is only open Thursday through Saturday), will definitely require advance planning (plus $200 deposit per person, which will be fully refunded on the reservation day). Given that the reservation window opens 30 days prior at midnight Pacific Time, I was afraid I might miss the window but if you are able to wake up early Eastern Time the next day, most likely you will be able to snag a table. The modest and cozy setting of the counter gives a warm neighborhood restaurant vibe that belies the very high quality of dishes coming out of chef Daniel’s hands. The restaurant does have a decent number of sakes and some limited wines on the beverage list; it also allows corkage for a fairly modest price of $45 / wine bottle so I brought a couple of champagnes from a wine shop in LA (I highly recommend Thatcher’s Wine in Brentwood) to take advantage of the policy. At the end of the meal, we chatted for a bit with chef Daniel, who is a truly nice person that simply enjoys what he does and is eager to continue to improve upon his craft. I am so glad that there are still sushi restaurants out there that can wow us with an exceptional omakase meal and would gladly be back to visit Sushi Sonagi next time we are in LA.

KenScale: 8.5/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.5/10)

Address: 1425 Artesia Blvd Unit 27, Gardena, CA 90248

Website: None 

Reservation via Tock