Totoyama Sushi & Ramen Hollywood — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Never did I think that I would be spending my Saturday afternoon writing a Google review for a sushi place in Hollywood but I've got some down time and I don't have any friends in town at the moment. Let's get started.

Like you, I was interested in this restaurant. The food looked great (both online and in person), location was close to my apartment, and the menu was reasonably priced.

It was Friday night, last night in fact. My girlfriend and I made plans to eat dinner here. I made a reservation for 7PM and intended to see a movie a few blocks away at 830.

We were greeted, sat, and we both ordered a beer. We looked over the menu, discussed our options, and ordered our edamame, thick tuna special and put in our sushi dishes; beers arrive.

Half an hour goes by. Weird for edamame, but we were wrapped up in our conversation. A couple with a child is sat next to us. Looking back I should have said something around this point.

A couple to our other side scrambles to pay their check and stuffs food into containers because of some obvious delay and some plans they had. Second red flag. The tempura left on the table looked good. I should have snapped to my senses around this time.

Another 15 minutes goes by and the edamame for the table next to us arrives. Standard edamame to table delivery time. We trap the other waitress and demand answers.

Our waitress comes to our table and proceeds to ask us what we had ordered.. Albeit quite frustrated, we remind her of our original order. Our waitress jots down the order that we had originally placed 45 minutes earlier, apologizes, and goes directly to the chef. She returns to our table and tells us that our beers were on her and apologized again. We still had a small bit of time and we both kind of felt bad for her, she seemed frazzled.

After another 30 minutes of waiting with the expectation of being bombarded by sushi with terrible timing, nothing shows up. I flag our waitress down and she tells me that she has comped the beers and cancelled our order. I become visibly upset but attempt to control my voice. I go to speak to the manager at the host stand. This is where the real problem lies.

I am met with a manager who apologized to me and then reminds me that they are comping our two beers. Are you kidding me? Two beers? You guys get bottled beer at like $1.25 price point right? I am repeatedly told that they are sorry and reminded that they paid for our 2 beers. I have never been treated with such disrespect and lack of empathy while going out to eat.

Everyone else looked like they were enjoying themselves and that their food was good. I just hope that you are not that one table.. I, personally, will not be taking that chance again.

The Shake Shack next door is phenomenal and will act as a mid-range last minute substitute should you run into a schedule conflict as well.

Two...

Totoyama Sushi and Ramen invites in customers with a smile to enjoy delish Japanese cuisine. Upon entering the restaurant, which conveniently sits in downtown West Hollywood, customers are cheerily greeted by both the sushi bar chef and the hostess.

The restaurant’s chef, Chef Yukinari Yamamoto, began professionally preparing sushi in 1988. He has since championed a legacy of creating authentic, delicious Japanese food. We did a little research before arriving to eat my meal, and we were excited to taste his edible creations. He recommended delectable dishes such as the Albacore Ponzu Sashimi, Salmon Truffle Oil Sashimi, or the Omakase. (among others) One of the most notable, specialty dishes Totoyama serves is their Aburi (“flame seared”) sushi. Totoyama also has several vegan and gluten free ramen options as well.

Diners have the option to sit at the sushi bar, which is bottom lit by blue LED lights and positioned behind chic bamboo partitions. Customers can watch as their sushi is expertly prepared by the chef. Totoyama’s sushi bar extends into a fine dining room. Outside, the dining establishment also has a shaded patio with trendy string light decorations and bamboo plants. No matter where you choose to dine, the ambiance of Totoyama is classy but relaxed.

To start, we ordered the Ramune Japanese soda. Totoyama only carried the original flavor of the beverage, which tasted reminiscent of fresca soda. Totoyama also offers alcoholic drinks–such as sake, award-winning wine, draft beers, Japanese craft beers, cocktails, shochu and wine– as well as a variety of teas.

To pair with the drinks, we ordered the creamy vegan ramen. Upon ordering, my server asked how spicy we would like the dish. Treading the fine line between challenging my taste buds and burning them off, we decided to order my ramen with a medium spice level. When it came out, my ramen bowl was topped with radishes, cabbage, kaiware sprouts, red peppers, green onions, and carrots. The broth, accentuated by lemon juice, was strikingly zesty and rich. The noodles were made of kale, but tasted much like regular ramen noodles. The ramen had a scrumptiously subtle kick of heat. The broth created the perfect ramen base, and chef Yamamoto filled the bowl with crisp, garden-fresh vegetables that complemented the hearty kale noodles. We enjoyed my meal at Totoyama and will be back soon to try to Aburi...

Oh, it breaks my heart to leave this review because the folks who work here are absolutely the sweetest! It is a clean, friendly restaurant with a great vibe, right in the middle of Hollywood. This review refers only to the ramen, we did not try the sushi. Just to get it out of the way, in case anyone cares, the ramen isn't authentic Japanese ramen; it's leans more "Korean," with a spicy broth—but I have no problem with that at all. One of my favorite ramen places in L.A. has Korean flavors that I really, really love. The issue for me was that the broth didn't have much flavor. It was a vegetarian broth, but I've had delicious veggie dashi before—you can even buy it at a Japanese grocery. This broth was watery and lacked complexity. For me it was all heat and little else.

The next issue was the vegetables. You don't typically find zucchini and carrot in traditional ramen, and probably for good reason. Also the scallions were shaved very thin to look like seaweed, which caused some visual dissonance and subtracted from the flavor. The bamboo shoot add-on was an interesting touch, but it was undercooked and bland. In my opinion, a typical no-meat ramen can include: scallions, tofu, boiled egg, bean sprouts, fried tofu, maybe agedashi. Well-cooked bamboo shoots (maybe nishime-style) and even spinach aren't typical but can work too. The last issue was the noodles themselves. My noodles lacked the traditional ramen bite, a little spongy but serviceable—but someone else ordered the tonkotsu ramen, and the noodles weren't even ramen noodles—they were thin somen-type noodles.

One last thing, not a big deal, maybe even kind of cute because everyone was so positive and spirited and interested in presenting authentically: It was a 6 pm dinner seating, and if I'm not mistaken, the chefs and staff were enthusiastically greeting each other with "Ohayōgozaimasu," which means "good morning." "Konbanwa" (good evening) would've been more appropriate. But hey, it's refreshing to be anywhere and hear people greeting each other with such joy. Food aside, I would give the service, people, and...