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Japanese Tacos and Tapas at Necco

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.

It's Not All Sushi at Slow Fish

Why would I eat spicy Korean pork in a sushi restaurant? Because it's so darned good, that's why.

The restaurant is the Japanese/Korean place Slow Fish in Mid-Wilshire. Most of the menu is Japanese, and the seafood is very good--I've eaten a lot of it.

But Korean barbecued pork is on the menu too, called Dancing Pork, and it's one of my favorites. Very spicy, a little sweet and loaded with sauce, it makes a terrific lunch special, for only $8, including miso soup, rice and salad (at the top). Even better, the serving was so big that I took some home for another meal. 

You can also get the pork in a rice bowl, but it needs the salad to offset the heady flavors.

Or you could order this blue crab salad with tofu squares and sesame sauce.

Or tuna tostadas, which taste gingery and spicy. The base is a crisp round wonton skin.

Seared ahi carpaccio with lemon juice, pickled onions, lotus root and radish would be refreshing too.

Or try Korean halibut carpaccio with capers and bright seasonings that include ponzu. And, would you believe, Parmesan cheese. 

This salad-like combination includes salmon, mango and avocado.

And look at this fat avocado, stuffed with seasoned albacore and dressed up with mustard-sesame sauce and eel sauce. Yes, that's a cherry on top.

Light things tucked inside this gangster wrap including crab, shrimp, spicy tuna, avocado and cucumber. The wrapper is soy paper.

Slow Fish makes a big case for the health benefits, flavor and texture of Korean black rice. Here Chef Sean An holds a plate of black rice accompanying swai in a miso cream sauce.

The good news is, you can have black rice on the Dancing Pork lunch special instead of white rice. All it costs is an extra $2.

Slow Fish, 5406 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036. Tel:  (323) 930-0170.

Lunching With Seniors in Little Tokyo

Leftovers in a senior citizens residence? Not trendy, but it was a fun lunch.

When I worked downtown, I occasionally ate in the dining room of Little Tokyo Towers on East 3rd Street. Outsiders were welcome, and lots of people lined up to collect the day's menu on a tray, then take it to long tables in the dining area.

Lunch was generous--a main dish, pickles, tea, dessert--at least that's how I remember it.  When I went in the other day, No one was around. The seniors had eaten at 11 a.m and were gone by 11:30.

Whatever was left was packaged in styrofoam boxes tied up in plastic bags.  By the time I arrived, just three of these boxes were left. I bought one, for $2.50. You can see it at the top.

Inside were noodles stir-fried with chicken, bamboo shoots, cabbage, carrots and bean sprouts, and a few zucchini slices cooked Asian style.  Dessert was a banana. The beverage was milk--nutritious to be sure. Tea was gone, so the two women working as volunteers gave me water, and one of them handed me a hard candy from her purse.

Here is what I would have eaten if I had come the next day.  

Outside, the gardens are beautiful.  How many eating places have as appealing an entrance as this one? Afterwards you can linger on benches there to enjoy a peaceful moment far removed from the traffic nearby.  

Little Tokyo Towers,  455 E 3rd St. #101, Los Angeles, CA 90013. 

A Party for Japan's Emperor

 
What a beautiful party for the Emperor of Japan's birthday. People dressed in their finest, and that included kimonos with gorgeous obis.

There was samisen music. And sake. And good California wines such as Acacia and Laetitia Chardonnays with which to offer a toast to Emperor Akihito.

The official birthday is December 23, but the party took place a month earlier to avoid the holiday rush and also to greet the new consul general of Japan in Los Angeles, Jun Niimi.

The Los Angeles consulate oversees the second largest community of Japanese-Americans in the United States, extending from Southern California into Arizona and numbering some 270,000 people. The largest is in Hawaii.

Hundreds thronged into the gardens of the consular residence for socializing, an official program and nonstop food, from Katsu-ya.

Tray after tray of sushi appeared, along with delicious miso-marinated cod on lettuce leaves (at right), cups of Japanese sweet potato, spoonfuls of marinated fish and fish layered on top of hot rice.

Waiters circulated with drinks to make sure everyone had a glass for the toast. And the feast continued even when the party began to thin out. It was royal hospitality, on a royal occasion.