LA Yakitori | Torihei Yakitori 🍢

Quick take: Good value, but nothing mind-blowing. As a semi-Bay Area visitor looking for some “refined” LA eats—who exactly crowned this spot the yakitori king of LA? Maybe I missed out by coming at noon (no chicken skin, tail, cartilage, or scallion thigh skewers available), but still… Overall, the skewers were decent but not as memorable as Sumika (Los Gatos) or Ippuku (Berkeley). Though to be fair, prices here were 30–40% cheaper. What really threw me off: every sauce was aggressively salty—like triple the usual salt level. Skewers were generally fine, but a few dishes were serious misses: 💣 Big Misses (mainly due to weird sauces): 🥬 Cabbage Salad — So salty I was stunned. 🍡 Meatball — Tasty on its own, but drowned in overpowering sauce. 🥓 Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus with Curry Sauce — Looked like a caterpillar 🐛, tasted… odd. 🍰 Mont Blanc Dessert — Sugar overload, like eating plain sugar. ❤️ Liked: 🍖 Homemade Chicken Liver Pâté — Unique texture, delicious. 🍢 Liver / Gizzard / Wings — Reliably good. 🐂 Beef Tongue — A bit overcooked, I’ve made better at home. Verdict: A decent comfort spot for locals, but tourists don’t need to go out of their way. #Yakitori #LAEats #LAFood #JapaneseGrill#FoodReview #Izakaya #ValueEats #SaltyAF