Himitsu — Restaurant in San Diego

Himitsu : “C,” with a final score of 60%, meaning “Mediocre. Not coming back, but not yet angry.”

Executive summary: good vibes, but mediocre food and poor value makes me question how Himitsu made it to the “Michelin recommended” status, and in my books, “not recommended.” Before the restaurant review, I created a new rating system. Of course there is always subjectivity in reviews, but taking inspiration from Car & Driver head-to-head car reviews, I’m hoping a more systematic way of analyzing different restaurants can help lessen subjectivity. The final grade will be determined by a weighted score of 3 factors - food (70%), vibe & decor (20%), service (10%). The scores will be added, then multiplied by a “value” factor that can improve or reduce the score by up to 20%. See photo for elaboration.

Himitsu, I first tried about two years ago, and had a fairly good experience. So on my wife’s birthday, who’s actually out of town, I decided to celebrate it anyway, but without her. I got a 5:45pm reservation, and excitedly told my daughter “let’s go to good Japanese!” Note to self: never set high expectations!

The restaurant has very limited inside seating. About ⅓ is inside, ⅓ in a “covered tent” and another ⅓ on the “patio” (err…sidewalk?) beside the parking lot. Despite sitting on the patio, the weather Gods cooperated and it felt quite comfortable.

A cheerful waitress greeted us, and shared the “tonight’s specials.” Nothing popped out, and I was quite happy about the standard menu, most dishes served in small plates, allowing us to go for variety. We ended up starting with 6, and I figured we’d continue to order as we ate, depending on how we felt.

Ribeye katsu sando (B ) : This was the meal highlight. Beef was tender, juicy, and nicely seasoned. The breading wasn’t as crispy as desired, but understandable since it was in between two slices of soft white bread. The ginger dressing was a little too tangy, overpowering the beef, but the weakest link was the cold au jus. Dipping the sandwich meant it became cold and soggy. So I only dipped once because I’m a fast learner.

“Today’s special” soft shell crab roll (C ) : The weakest dish of the night. I originally ordered the “regular” soft shell crab roll from the menu, but the waitress mentioned they had “fresh crab” off the special menu, and I simply said “sure.” In hindsight, I should have asked about the price but I never would have expected it to be double! The worst part, it didn’t taste anything special. The lettuce conflicted with the crab that didn’t taste particularly fresh, and it really didn’t taste much better than something from a Japanese supermarket.

Salmon hand roll (B ) : I didn’t try this, but my daughter says it deserved a “B”.

Anago (eel) nigiri (B ) : This was quite nice, very light seasoning, reminiscent of how they’re served in Japan. The good, I could taste the sweetness of the eel. The bad, the eel wasn’t fatty enough, so given the quality of the eel, the North American style with a little more char and more sauce would have improved the dish.

Salmon belly nigiri (C+ ) : It was a generous slice of salmon belly, but not enough marbling and rather tasteless.

Ebi (shrimp) nigiri (C ) : The shrimp was overcooked and rather tasteless.

My original intent was to keep ordering, but even my daughter, especially after eating the soft shell crab roll, said “nah, the quality is not there.” I asked about desserts but they sounded all French based, like creme brulee, and ultimately, nothing appealing. So we stopped, and asked for the bill. At $122 for the quality and amount of food served, especially $39 for the soft shell crab roll, plus the auto 20% gratuity, the value certainly wasn’t there.

Finally score: “C” at 60% or “Mediocre. Not coming back, but not yet angry.”

Food: C+ (65%) Vibe: B (70%) Service: B (70%)

Weighted total: 45.5 (Food) + 14 (Vibe) + 7 (Service) = 66.5

Value factor: “Not worth it” so reduced score by 10% for a final score of...

Himitsu is a quaint restaurant in La Jolla Cove serving high-end sashimi and nigiri alongside a compact menu of small plates and rolls. My visits to Himitsu have provided a generous amount of excellent sushi, and a warm experience that has rivaled my sushi experiences in Tokyo. The space consists of an outdoor patio and a handful of sushi bar seats which you should hope to reserve when dining here. A strong social vibe pervades the small sushi bar, isolated in its own intimate solarium where one has the opportunity to know their chef and fellow diners.

Behind the sushi bar is Chef Mitsu Aihara, formerly of Sushi-Ota. If you are fortunate enough to sit at the sushi bar and have Chef Mitsu attend to you personally, you MUST order the omakase, as Chef Mitsu delivers one of the best and most innovative omakase experiences in San Diego, proving to be similarly skilled to his mentor, Chef Ota. A friendly character with a natural ability to effortlessly create Instagram-able food porn, Chef Mitsu takes the time to know the diner he is serving and customizes the omakase experience for that person -- I noticed I was getting slightly different sushi than he was serving the couple next to me who were also doing omakase. The fish came out fast-and-furious and, two hours into it, I finally needed to tap out after being served an ultra-rich hand roll containing uni, "melt-in-your-mouth" otoro, and salmon roe, for what seemed like my 25th course in.

Much of Himitsu's fish is flown in overnight from Japan, though some of it is locally-caught as well. A few of my favorites that aren't as popular at other sushi joints in San Diego included the buttery "Black Throat Sea Perch" and the naturally sweet "Triggerfish," topped with its own white, sticky liver when served nigiri-style.

As other reviews have noted, Chef Mitsu loves Japanese sardines, here served as both nigiri and sashimi, somewhat fatty and slippery in texture and with a clean but concentrated flavor of fish. This is a unique piece of sushi I've not had elsewhere that reminded me of Red Boat 40°N, a favorite fish sauce in my household.

Mid-way through my omakase, I was offered Shirako, which Chef Mitsu described as "an appetizer, like eggs." Since I've had Shirako before, I shot back, "don't you mean sperm?", and so ended the ruse, as my fellow diners at the bar all soured their faces at once, and I enjoyed my cod sperm sacs, here served raw in a ponzu sauce -- its creamy white blobs sharing both the texture and taste of the fried belly parts of whole belly fried clams, but without the deep-fried batter.

Other sushi I've had here has included Otoro, Chutoro, Marinated Blue Fin Akami, Local Spiny Lobster, Salmon Belly, Hamachi Belly, Uni, Stripejack, Raw Squid, Seared Squid with Shiso and Eel Sauce, Needlefish, Octopus, Razor Clam, Albacore, Ocean Eel, Kelp-Marinated Halibut, and Wagyu Beef. All have been served fresh and, at minimum, have met my expectations. Additionally, I've ordered the "Salmon Jalapeño," similar to Nobu's famous "Hamachi Jalapeño," but Himitsu's choice to use "candy-striped" salmon meat leads to a more dramatic presentation despite a slight loss of richness.

I'm admittedly a bit of a sushi snob, but I don't need to gorge myself at spendy outlets like Tadokoro, Kaito, or Ota to be satisfied. However, due to the overall dependability of these restaurants, their sourcing of supremely high-quality seafood, and the mouth-watering plates of sashimi served, I am often willing to spend a little extra. Himitsu is such a place I'll open my wallet up for, and should be considered to be in the apex tier of sushi restaurants...

TL;DR - reasonably priced quality sushi. Get the San Diego uni.

Our group of 10 had a 7:30 reservation on a Friday night. It didn't look that busy but we still had to wait about 10 minutes or so. I also didn't realize they close at 9 until we were finishing up and they were cleaning up the rest of the restaurant. I guess I'm just used to NYC hours.

To start, we ordered a bottle of sake, and they bring out a tray of different colored sake cups for you to pick from, which I thought was pretty cool. Not a big deal, but it's just the little things!

Some people in the group don't eat raw fish, so it was nice that they had a lot of cooked food options. I am in the raw fish eating group and our group was looking forward to the 'secret omakase' for about $55, that we saw online. Unfortunately, they did not have this when we got there and our waiter, Jake, explained that there was only the sashimi omakase or we could get the pieces a la carte. So we decided to "build our own omakase". Six of us agreed on all the pieces we would order, and eat it in the same order so that we could share the same experience.

We had the seared o'toro, chu toro, blue fin tuna, amaebi (sweet shrimp), hamachi, salmon, salmon belly, scallop, wagyu with uni, and uni. I love tuna, so all of the tuna pieces were great to me - especially the seared o'toro. Amaebi was only okay to me but they fry up the shrimp heads for you, which I really liked and it's not something I'd seen other Japanese restaurants do for me before. Wagyu with uni was really good too but it's so rich, I don't think I could eat more than one of these. My favorite was definitely the uni. The San Diego uni was AMAZING. If available, they'll give you a choice of San Diego or Hokkaido. I didn't try the Hokkaido but I have in NYC, so I know it's something I can get back at home. But when you're in San Diego, you get the San Diego uni, and it did not disappoint! The pieces are also pretty reasonably priced. Wagyu and uni will obviously be more expensive ($13) but for regular pieces like blue fin, salmon, or even the scallop, these were only $3-$4! You can't even get half the quality for this exact price at a fushi restaurant in NYC!

My sister ordered the Himitsu Roll (spicy salmon and crab, topped with scallop, jalapeno, cilantro aioli) and I tried a piece. In theory, it sounds really good. I like everything that's in there, separately. But together, there was just a bit too much going on. I also ate some of the Soft Shell Crab Roll (deep Fried Soft Shell Crab, lettuce, yamagobo , salsa, kaiware) from the non-sushi eaters' side, and it was kind of disappointing. The crab was skimpy and the roll tasted mostly like lettuce. I think they just don't do special rolls well here. It sounds good on paper but the execution falls flat.

Minor gripe - they use paper menus, which seemed like they could have been disposable and most of our menus were pretty dirty. If you're going to use paper menus, I think you can issue a new round between customers, especially during Covid times.

I normally don't say this for a city I'm just visiting, since I like to try new restaurants each time I go - but if I ever find myself in SD again, I would...