Miyabi Uni — Restaurant in Torrance

Let's start by saying the food is genuinely good, it is. Let's be honest, if sushi is fresh, there's little you can do to screw it up.

In addition, the construction is unique. The Uni Shooters are undeniably excellent. In fact, the chef's love for Uni is apparent in nearly everything they do.

The location cannot be beat, with plenty of parking and several other dining options around.

So why the dismal rating you ask?

Well, let me start off by saying that 3 stars is not dismal, it means I got exactly what I should expect from the restaurant. You don't give 4 or 5 stars to a restaurant for doing what you expect them to do, those ratings are reserved for going above and beyond expectations.

In all honesty, the 3 stars are mostly for the service.

Now, don't get upset at me. Yes, I know service is dead everywhere, it was killed by Covid (or some suggest before that), and it's going to take an act of Congress to bring it back (which explains why we are all so depressed with dining out these days). But I will not (never ever) accept that food service should ever come without at least a modicum level of service.

Let's make this clear: when a person, who was not my server, came out to ask me if I enjoyed my appetizer (which I very much did) the following occurred : Me: "It was awesome, I could eat that all day, but that would be a bad idea. I am ready to move on to the main dish." Not my server: "Okay, I'll take care of it." and then walks away.

A short time later, another order of the appetizer has arrived, completely unexpected, brought by yet ANOTHER server.

Now listen, the appetizer (Uni Shooter) is totally amazing, so of course, I excepted the order. But I told Server 3,that I didn't order this,because I didn't. But it's here, so I will eat it, I'm not worried about the cost, I have no problem paying for it, it's delicious. My problem comes from the fact that I did not order it, and I specifically said that I cannot have another.

So here's the rub: why would any place rotate servers to the same table? I don't have time to explain how utterly stupid that is, but suffice to say, if I explained to my server my allergy issues, the potential for that info to be lost when dealing with multiple servers is beyond acceptable. And for that reason alone, it should be avoided as often as possible, but there are a multitude of other reasons that this is a bad business practice.

I'm clearly not the only person who feals this way, the Mexican restaurant across the isle has a line waiting to get in, and this place is dead.

Which is a real shame, the chef has something special here. Unique perspectives and a eye for quality. I just wish that eye could be extended...

Miyabi is located in a small plaza in Downtown Torrance. I personally like to park outside in the downtown area versus going down to the parking lot area, but there's usually good options to find parking. Coming upstairs, you'll find Miyabi near the streetside.

First, kudos to the wait staff. My friend really wanted to sit outside even though it was super cold. The wait staff noted that although they would prefer us to sit inside, they took our request and was able to turn one of the heaters on. Made for a more intimate experience!

Second, the menu is great and obviously delicious if you're looking for all things uni. This also means that the menu isn't cheap, but I think the pricing is for the most part fair. Here's a few of the items we got:

*Sparkling sake: I unfortunately didn't denote the brand name, but the sparkling sake we got was delicious and recommended by the waitress. *Hot house premium sake: I admittedly didn't try the regular house sake, but the waitress did say that she thought the premium hot sake was worth it. It was good! A little bit of an aftertaste but overall was soothing. *Premium uni pasta: We wavered a bit back and forth on which of the pasta dishes we wanted but ended up wanting the creamier option. The staff was nice enough to also change this into spaghetti noodles as well. Delicious all-around and one of the better uni pastas around town. *Uni Tamagoyaki: Surprisingly good! When you cut into the egg, it will ooze out with uni and be a little wet which looks odd. But the taste is fantastic. It's easy to eat and a great one to have. *Uni Shooters: Note that each order comes with two! We ordered two orders so we got four (but were totally fine with this). Unsurprisingly a little salty but we loved it. Great uni mixed in with the egg / caviar. *Toro Uni Wrap: Four fatty tuna sashimi that wraps uni and wasabi/ponzu jelly. It's really good (although surprisingly probably not our most favorite dish of the night). *Furi-furi french fries: Haha - we were looking for a last thing to snack on and didn't want dessert. So the waitress suggested the french fries. It comes in a brown paper bag & you can add as much uni salt as you want along with an accompanying uni sauce. Not a must get but...

Food: 3/5 Food is acceptable. By that I mean there was nothing wrong with freshness, smell, taste, or texture, but there was absolutely nothing outstanding about it. It is the quality you SHOULD expect from any half-decent restaurant that serve raw fish. The headline item of uni is also acceptable quality, but it did not impress me. I would rank it around the ones sourced from Santa Barbara that is typically found in most Japanese groceries stores. I will concede that December is not the best month for uni. And while I do not find the price point outrageous, I should note that the large kaisen don pictured has more than my expected amount of fillers like daikon strings, salad vegetables, ginger etc. I personally despise these items in kaisen don. The tamago depresses me.

Service: 3/5 The staff appeared haggard and running around, but the restaurant was only about half full with an empty patio. It seems to be a problem with division of labor. For example the servers are often bunched up near the kitchen entrance waiting for dishes to come out, and the staff behind the counter, particularly the pasta station, was working non-stop, but nonetheless the food took over 30 minutes to arrive. The politeness and attentiveness meets the minimum expected for a Japanese restaurant.

Atmosphere: 1/5 The atmosphere is the worst part of this restaurant. The decor can best be described as "Ikea Afterthought". Cheap furniture, greasy table, random decoration that are all more akin to a local mom-and-pop Asian restaurant that you order take-out from than a dine-out destination.

Overall 3/5. I somehow led myself to believe, from the online reviews and the price point, that this is a slightly up market restaurant worth the drive. It is not. It is acceptable for a local week night upgrade, but...