n/soto — Restaurant in Los Angeles

We arrived on a Saturday night with a reservation for 4, and because there weren’t many seats and there were a couple of larger parties that hadn’t left yet, we were asked to wait outside for about 20 minutes or so.

The service was great throughout the entire meal; the staff were attentive with taking away dishes promptly and refilling water, so kudos to all the staff working there. It was never pushy but always helpful and timely. Two party members ordered the hot Japanese teas, and I ordered one of the cocktail, which was delicious.

All of our openers were refreshing and light, which helped ups ease into the meal very well. The crudite was delicious (we particularly loved the chewy but slightly crispy mochi flatbreads) but very small. We each basically got one slice of the flatbread and maybe one or two pieces of vegetables with the dip. The scallop sashimi was also very appetizing and went well with the other opener we had.

After that, the kushiyaki came out and for the most part they pretty good. The favorites were the classic negima and the chicken wings, the let downs were the kurobuta sausages.

The nigiri and hand rolls came next. We ordered the beef with uni, the tai and the toro, as well as crab handrails for everyone. My favorite was surprisingly the tai, because of the bright pop of the yuzukosho on top. The beef was too chewy for me to be on a nigiri, I was still chewing it after I had swallowed the rice and the uni. My friends said that crab hand rolls were not as good as the ones they had at n/naka (they attributed it to the crab being seasoned differently and the nori not being as good.)

After the cold dishes came the hot ones, the agedashi mochi, the beef tongue wraps, the bone marrow and the karaage chicken. We loved the sauce of the mochi dish, and how light and crisp all of the components were. The beef tongue wraps were a hit as well, all of us loved how soft and tender the bites were. The bone marrow was forgettable, we each got a tiny bite of the yaki onigiri topped with the bone marrow, so we could tell it was decent but there just wasn’t enough for us to have any positive associations.The karaage was a nice surprisingly large portion compared to everything else, and we loved that it was perfectly fried but still juicy inside.

The final round arrived after that consisting of what were probably the worst two dishes of the night. The maitake tempura was the lesser of the two evils, but none of us enjoyed it. The batter was too heavy on bunches of “leaflets” and absorbed a ton of oil, which soaked through the paper on the bottom and sat very heavy on our stomach, to the point that the oil flavor overtook the woodiness of the mushrooms. Someone even compared it to the deep-fried batter at a fair.

The clam dish though was the real let down. We were so excited when they pulled out the clay pot and uncovered it in front of us, but something must have happened in the kitchen because we were so let down. The flavor of the broth was so salty, it was bitter and inedible, like they forgot they had salted and re-salted the entire broth. They had given us bowls along with the dish, so we assumed that we were meant to drink the broth, so imagine our shock when we found out we were sipping on seawater. We ended up each pouring half a glass of water from our water cups into our bowls to dilute the sodium content, and even then it was still too salty. Honestly a major let down because we were so excited to end the night with a clean bowl of clam broth, but it was appalling that this even landed on our table.

All in all, the pacing was good, the staff was excellent, and most of the dishes were great (if not a little small portion-wise, so we had to overorder). It’s just a bummer that the last two dishes were just not up to standard and really made the night end on a sour note. I would say, go and enjoy once to see how your experience is, but expect to pay about $100 a person to be filled and avoid the few dishes I mentioned to make sure you’re not wasting your stomach space...

POLISHED 🍣 CONFIDENT ⭐️ PORTIONS

We did it! We finally ate at n/soto, a beautiful and mysterious Japanese pop up restaurant on Washington Blvd. we've been scoping out for the past few months(at least).

My boyfriend first noticed the modest, obscure, ivy covered single story building on Washington and pointed as we drove by. "What's that?" he asked as we peered into the darkness at a closed restaurant with an attractive simple sign.

I kept driving as did a quick Google search. "IT'S A JAPANESE POP UP! AND THE FOOD LOOKS SO GOOD!" he said, which made me immediately look into reservations once we got home.

Finally, we went to the website and secured a reservation a month out on Resy. However, I was told tonight, that you can email the restaurant and if they're able to seat your party same day, they will try, which I thought was very kind.

To be completely honest though, the food was so confidently prepared, and the menu so thoughtfully put together, we would have waited two months to eat here.

The execution of such a dining space on this side of Washington Blvd. is a warm and welcomed surprise. I look forward to eating here again soon.

As for what we ordered, you really can't go wrong with anything. The bites are small and should be ordered all at once. Trust us, for two people we ordered about 9 dishes and it ended up being just enough.

The alcohol and coctails list is special. They put as much care into their coctails as their sushi. That being said, I went ahead and tried a spicy non alcohol coctail and it was DELICIOUS. I ended up having two.

All in all 10/10 will...

Ever had a meal so mediocre that you just get a little sad afterwards? That was our experience, and I regret coming in with high expectations.

I ordered bento boxes from n/soto multiple times during the pandemic and raved about how awesome they were. When I finally got the chance to try this place in person, I ended up so disappointed.

First, there's a lot to pick from on the menu: small dishes, salads, sashimi and such, kushiyaki (skewers), tempura, and larger protein or rice dishes. We decided to try some of (nearly) everything, and nothing really stood out.

I do not recommend any of the sashimi and sushi. The fish was fresh enough but lacked any depth of flavor you'd expect from cuts like toro. This was pretty shocking coming from the same people at n/naka.

We ordered the agedashi mochi and maitake tempura. The former came with 2 pieces of shiso leaf-wrapped shrimp tempura, which was the only thing we truly enjoyed that night.

Miso baked bone marrow with onigiri and pickled red onions was a good concept that failed to wow. The steamed sea bass had delicate flavors that I appreciated, but I ended up choking on a bone they forgot to remove. After that point, I was pretty done with my meal.

Since you have so much to choose from on the menu, I have to wonder if we picked all the wrong things. But the fact that nothing stood out to me means I'll probably won't be...