California Roll Factory & Sushi

1999-03-09

I was pretty skeptical of this place but I was pleasantly surprised.  First I must mention that California Roll and most of the other rolls you see in a sushi restaurant in California are not Japanese.  You won't find a California roll in Japan nor a spider roll or a rainbow roll or a caterpillar roll or a crunch roll etc...  That doesn't really mean anything because most of those rolls can be pretty delicious.  The majority of my Japanese friends love these rolls.

What you will find in Japan is a seafood salad roll which is basically shredded crab meat with Kewpie mayonnaise (Kewpie, pronounced Que−Pee,  is a brand that seems to probably have 95% of the mayonnaise market in Japan.  It comes in a squeeze tube)  That basically makes the only real difference between a California roll and Seafood Salad Sushi the avocado and that Seafood Salad Sushi is not rolled.

Anyway, on the west side of LA, unlike O.C., it seems to me that most places that serve California roll didn't put mayo in them.  That should be illegal.  It's like what are they thinking?  That's like a dry sandwich.  Yuck!  Well, this place does it right.

On top of serving all the "standard" rolls you see in California and also more traditional sushi they also serve about 100 different special rolls which they've given pretty much random names like the Tommy roll, or the 720 roll, the June and Nick roll etc.  They are written as small signs in crayons or markers all over the walls.  It almost looks like customers made them up.  Well I tried several of them and they were all good.  It especially like the California roll with baked scallops in a special sauce poured on top.  Sorry, I don't remember the name but mmmm mmmm!

On Santa Monica West of the 405 just before Barrington.

 

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