Surveying "sushi row" and its spectacular seafood

Good Food

KCRW

Society & Culture

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Raw fish reaches its apex on a stretch of Ventura Blvd. that's home to the highest concentration of sushi restaurants in the US.

Brant Cox of The Infatuation surveys the sushi restaurants of Ventura Boulevard.

Chef and TV host Andrew Zimmern imparts lessons from his time on the water to set up home cooks for seafood success.
Ixta Belfrage creates recipes that embrace her multicultural lens and Brazil's layered cuisine.
For nearly two decades Aldo Sohm has poured wine at Le Bernardin in New York City, creating harmony between what's in the glass and on the plate.
Chef Michael Fiorelli of Fiorelli Pizza pairs Brussels sprouts with persimmons and pomegranates in a salad that screams autumn.

Connect with Good Food host Evan Kleiman on Substack.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW, I'm Evan Klyman, and this is good food.
0:05.6	Sushi Spot is as iconic to me as the circus liquors clown, you know, the sign out front there.
0:11.9	Like to me, it is such an iconic place, and when I'm there by myself, I'm at peace.
0:17.3	Los Angeles might arguably be the best place for sushi outside of Japan, specifically the San Fernando Valley.
0:25.1	From strip malls to high-end Omikaze at the counter, Brant Cox of the infatuation has a roundup of the best spots along Ventura Boulevard.
0:35.4	Hi, Brand.
0:36.3	Hi, Evan.
0:37.2	Thank you so much for having me. Well, when I saw this,
0:39.7	I knew we had to talk about it. You know, I was an adult in L.A. in the 80s, so I always knew
0:45.4	that Ventura was a kind of ground zero for sushi restaurants. But I'm sure many people don't
0:52.4	realize that it's actually the highest concentration of sushi restaurants in America.
0:58.5	That's correct.
0:59.7	That's just so crazy.
1:02.2	Well, and get this, it's not even in America.
1:04.7	It's in the world outside of Japan, the highest concentration of sushi restaurants, which is wild.
1:09.9	So you honed in on a dozen stops on this 18-mile stretch.
1:15.4	Which on your list, if you would happen to know, has been around the longest?
1:21.0	So I believe on the list that I had, the oldest one on there is Asanabo.
1:26.6	And Asanabo is very special for a lot of reasons, special to Ventura Boulevard, special to Los Angeles, because you look at the history of Ventura Boulevard.
1:36.8	To pull a sports phrase for you is where in sports, they call things coaching trees, right? Where a team that wins a lot has these coaches that become famous
1:47.4	and they go off and coach elsewhere.
1:49.5	And then they come back and all these coaches are related to this one great team.
	...

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