[Stuidio City] [Japanese] Sushi Katsu-Ya

Sushi Katsu-Ya
11680 Ventura Blvd.
Studio City, CA 91604
(818) 985-6976
http://www.sushikatsu-ya.com

這天中午和公園先生和公園哥哥一起到Katsu-Ya吃中飯，居然等了一小時多才有座位，東西也不算難吃，不過好像也變得不怎麼好吃，服務也不怎麼佳，最後帳單還貴到嚇人，整個感覺餐廳好像退步了，這家曾經是公園先生最愛的一家餐廳，下次.... 應該是很久以後才會再來吧！

Dr. Park and his brother invited me to have lunch with them at Sushi Katsu-Ya on a Thursday.  Katsu-Ya always receive high rating from medias and most review websites.  I do like food from Katsu-Ya.  But honestly, I think it's just ok good and not worth all the hype.



We got to Katsu-Ya around 1 pm.  There were A LOT of people waiting for seats.  We were surprised to see how many people were there on a working day.  We waited, waited and waited.  After 1 hour and 15 minutes, we finally got a table.  Waiting 1 hour 15 minutes for lunch on a Thursday?  That's a bit too much for me. 





While waiting for seats, I was getting bored.  So I tried to be a paparazzi and took some picture of the pretty female sushi chef.  She looks a lot like Sammi Cheng,  a HK singer/actress.  Katsu-Ya is the only restaurant I've known that has a female sushi chef.



After sitting down, the waitress push their special menu next to our table.  I wouldn't call Katsu-Ya a "traditional" sushi restaurant.  Their menu consists of more "fusion" style of Japanese food.  Maybe that is the reason why most of their clientele are non-Asian.



Katsu-Ya now have their own packaging for the warm cotton towelette. 



Even though there are too many (in my opinion) Katsu-Ya in Los Angeles right now, only these three are owned by the original Katsu-Ya.  The other ones (there more modern looking ones) just bought the name.


Iced Green Tea ($2.00)

It was hot that day.  Dr. Park ordered a glass of iced green tea.  It was refreshing.


Cold House Sake ($5.50)

A Hispanic waitress asked what would we like to order to drink.  We said we wanted a cold house sake.  She asked, "what kind?"  On the menu, it just said "cold house sake".  How would we know what kind is their house sake?  So we said we don't know what kind of house sake we want and ask what kind do they have.  She answered with a very impatient tone, "it's on the menu."  We then pointed to the "cold house sake" to her and told her there's only one kind of house sake on the menu.  She just said "OH!" and walked away.  We didn't like that service, especially after waiting for 1.5 hour.


Miso Soup & Crisp Salad

We decided to order 3 lunch specials plus a few extra dishes.  Each of us got a bowl of miso soup.  My lunch box also came with crisp salad.  Miso soup was hot.  Crisp salad had the usual ginger dressing with fried wonton skin.  Nothing special here.


Salmon Skin Salad

Dr. Park and his brother both ordered sushi lunch special.  Besides sushi, they can choose another dish.  Dr. Park chose salmon skin salad.  The salad was pretty good, especially on a hot day like that day.


Shrimp and Vegetable Tempura

Dr. Park's brother ordered shrimp and vegetable tempura with his sushi lunch special.


Sushi Lunch Special ($12.50)

Their sushi lunch special came with 4 pieces of California roll and 7 pieces of assorted sushi.  Tuna, yellowtail, salmon, whitefish, shrimp, hokki clam, and egg.  They weren't bad, but nothing spectacular.  Dr. Park barely touched his sushi.


Lunch Box ($12.00)

I ordered lunch box.  It came with a small bean sprout appetizer, sashimi (salmon, tuna and whitefish) , broiled miso cod and shrimp and vegetable tempura.  I think this is a better deal than the sushi lunch special.  Everything is quite good here.  I really like the broiled miso cod.


Spanish Mackerel Sushi ($5.80)

We ordered a few extra dishes.  Spanish mackerel sushi was good.  I like all of those sushi that come with ponzu sauce.


Yellowtail Tasting ($11.80)

Yellowtail is Dr. Park's favorite fish.  He ordered the yellowtail tasting when he saw it on the special menu.  It came with 4 pieces of sushi, yellowtail belly, yellowtail, amberjack and grilled yellowtail.  The fish were all pretty tasty, but.... warm.  Warm sushi?  I can understand the cooked one being warm, but how come all the other raw ones were warm as well?  And it wasn't the rice that was warm, it was the fish.  We thought that was a little strange.


Spicy Tuna Roll w/ Creamy Rock Shrimp Tempura ($12.50)

Dr. Park's brother order spicy tuna roll with creamy rock shrimp tempura.  I like this one a lot.  The creamy rock shrimp tempura tasted kinda like walnut shrimp from Chinese restaurant.  Sweet creamy shrimp with spicy tuna roll, tasty!


Crispy Rice w/ Spicy Tuna ($9.00)

We always order crispy rice with spicy tuna when we come to Katsu-Ya.  I used to like this dish a lot.  But somehow it just didn't taste as good as before.  Is it me?  Or is it Katsu-Ya?



This was one expansive lunch!  For the quality and amount of food we got, we didn't think it was worth the price.  Plus the long wait and bad service didn't help much.  Katsu-Ya used to be one of Dr. Park's favorite sushi spot (the other one is Hide).  But both of us were quite disappointed with this visit.  We probably won't be back to Katsu-Ya anytime soon.

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