Ever seen a taco that looked like this? Probably not, that is, if you haven't been to Necco, a Japanese tapas restaurant on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Instead of corn masa, the "tortillas" are made of brown rice and potato starch. The filling is avocado and spicy tuna, as in the rolls you get in sushi restaurants.
This stack is three servings. You lift off your share, fold and eat for a seductive blend of flavors and textures--spicy, silky, smooth, crunchy and earthy.
Open a little more than two years, Necco combines traditional Japanese with California healthy. When I was there, Japanese filled the other tables, including L.A. Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda and his family.
No wonder they like the restaurant. The food is light, healthy and put together creatively. For example, miso soup (above) is not the standard miso soup that tastes the same no matter where you eat. It's pale, delicately flavored and made with mushroom broth, not dashi. And it's vegan.
The thick savory cake okonomiyaki (above) is full of healthy ingredients such as potatoes, taro, brown rice, tempeh, green onion and edamame. On top are mayonnaise and tonkatsu sauce.
Lunch specials range from $13 (a tapas plate) to $30 (a bento box). The five cards attached to the menu (above) show the choice of tapas to go with the main dishes.
A $20 plate (above) offers a panoramic survey of the lunch menu. On this one are poke, fried chicken in a cone of sasa leaf, salmon topped with shredded daikon and ponzu, edamame, tofu, crisp kale and slices of burdock and lotus root with sesame dressing. The yellow mound is kabocha squash, made even sweeter with maple syrup and raisins.
For the same price, you can tuck into a plate of Australian wagyu beef seasoned with balsamic and soy sauce, some of which flavors the rice beside it (above). There's also a bit of wasabi to pick up the flavor of the beef. The salad greens have ginger-carrot dressing. Pickles on the plates are made at the restaurant.
The name Necco means roots, so root vegetables get special attention. So do traditional and healthy Japanese ingredients. A card on the table (above) explains what some of these are.
This beauty of a dessert is a matcha ice cream sandwich with fresh fruit. The sandwich is gluten-free, and the ice cream is soy, an example of the healthy ideas prevalent at Necco.
Necco, a Japanese tapas restaurant, 1929 Westwood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025. Tel: (310) 446-5241.
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