🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, I don't know if this qualifies as a "best", but I went to a pretty
unusual sushi place on Sunday evening and thought I should post a short
review.

The place was Genmai Restaurant in Van Nuys.  Sorry I don't have the
address, but I wasn't driving.  I'm sure I have the name right, however.
It was billed as California-Japanese health food sushi, and that's a pretty
good description.

The restaurant itself was extremely modern, attractive and clean.  We
(party of 4) were seated immediately and given bowls of chopped cabbage
marinated in lemon juice to munch on while checking out the menu.
(By the way, though we didn't sit at the sushi bar, I noticed that it
was large and attractive, seemed to have comfortable seating, and there
were at least 3 sushi chefs.)  The menu was...interesting.  They specialize
in organic and vegetarian dishes, even going so far as to have a large 
selection of vegetarian sushi.  They do serve beer, sake and wine--one
can even order organic sake!

The sushi is made with brown or white rice, your choice.  We chose brown.
For appetizers, we had: 1) regular yellowtail sushi on brown rice;
2) spicy yellowtail hand roll; 3) two different kinds of vegetarian maki
made with brown rice.  I didn't taste either of the vegetarian rolls, but
one was made with marinated mushrooms and garlic, and was pronounced 
delicious.

For a main dish, I had tuna tataki, one of the evening's specials.
This is thin-sliced, lightly-seared tuna garnished with daikon and 
onion and served with a ponzu sauce.  It was delicious, but not particularly
plentiful.  Diner #2 had a salmon-skin salad.  Diner #3 had a combination
dinner which included another sushi roll, some deep-fried tofu, miso soup,
veggie tempura and some other stuff which I've forgotten(sorry).  He
also had some octopus sushi (separate).  Diner #4 was the real vegetarian,
and settled on a "shepherd's pie" made with millet and mushrooms--no
kidding.  She said it was great.

The desserts were great--a very pretty selection, all sweetened with
fruit juice.  They also had tempura ice cream.  We had one slice of
peach tart, one raspberry-banana layer cake with a cream-cheese filling,
and one red-bean tempura ice cream.  Total bill came to $79, no alcohol.
It's a good place to go if you have some committed vegetarians in the
group along with some who want sushi.