[Costa Mesa] [Japanese] Sushi Ikko

Sushi Ikko
735 Baker St #C
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
(714) 556-7822

I was trying to find a car shop on Yelp.  Then I came across Sushi Ikko.  There were 199 reviews, average 4.5 stars.  This place must be good.  I asked Dr. P to take a look on Yelp.  He called the restaurant right away and made omakase x 2 reservation for the same night.  The minimum of their omakase is $60/person.  They asked us what was our budget over the phone.  We went for the minimum charge.  They also asked us if there's anything we don't want to eat.  We told them we were open for anything.



Sushi Ikko is located in a small strip mall.  It wasn't too noticeable from the street.  It took us 1 big circle around the block to find this place.




The restaurant was small.  There are about 10 seats at the sushi bar, and 6 or 7 tables only.  Most of the sushi bar seats were reserved.  There were 2 sushi chefs working at the sushi bar, 1 chef in the kitchen preparing the cooked stuffs, and 2 waitresses.  We sat at the sushi bar.  We didn't talk to our chef that much because he was busy and really concentrated on preparing the food, so we didn't want to bother him too much.


Daisetu Sake ($12.95)

We ordered Daisetu Sake to start the omakase meal.  The sake was presented in a bamboo bottle.  Very pretty.


Mushroom Two Ways

The first dish was more like an amuse bouche.  Our waitress told us it was Mushroom Two Ways.  But I'm still not sure if those were really mushrooms.



I have no idea what the powder was.  It tasted airy in my mouth, and melted immediately.  It did have that earthy taste of mushroom to it.  Maybe it was mushroom powder?



This thing reminded of the liquid olive from Bazaar.  There were liquid inside of the thin membrane.  It exploded in my mouth.  But again, we had no idea what we were tasting though.


Smoked Duck with Parmesan Cheese and Poached Plum

2nd course was Smoked Duck with Parmesan Cheese and Poached Plum.  Those three things were a perfect combination.  Smoky flavor of the duck, salty Parmesan cheese, and sweet poached plum, everything just worked together in harmony.


Cold Summer Vegetable Salad w/ Smoked Tomato Dressing

We watched our sushi chef preparing the Cold Summer Vegetable Salad with Smoked Tomato Dressing.  It was so much work to put this salad together.  He cut each vegetable so precisely.  Then he placed them on the plate carefully.  It was just fascinating watching the chef preparing the food right in front of us.  The cold salad was refreshing.  The smoked tomato dressing was so good that I want to drink it.


"Chawanmushi" Steamed Egg Custard with Sea Urchin Sauce and Black Truffle

"Chawanmushi" was my favorite cooked dish of the night.  This was not your ordinary steamed egg custard.  It was made with sea urchin sauce and black truffle!  I absolutely love love love love the sea urchin sauce.  It was creamy, rich, and full of sweet sea urchin flavor.  Earthy black truffle was divine.  Just love it!  I will definitely order this Chawanmushi at Ikko every time.


Oven Grilled Onion with Wasabi Cream Cheese and Salmon Roe

5th course was Oven Grilled Onion with Wasabi Cream Cheese and Salmon Roe.  I wasn't sure if I'd like this dish when I first saw it.  There were so much.... onion.  I wasn't even sure how to eat it.  After a few tries, I figured out that the best way to eat this dish was using the onion as scoop, and mount the salmon roe and cream cheese on top.  Surprisingly, the dish tasted much better than I expected.  The caramelized onion was very sweet and soft.  It complimented the slightly salty salmon roe perfectly.


Sapporo Beer ($6.50)

At this point, we ran out of sake and decided to order some beer.  Dr. P was so happy with the meal, he ordered not just one, but two big Sapporo beers.


Crispy Shrimp with Sour Plum Cream Cheese

The last cooked course was Crispy Shrimp with Sour Plum Cream Cheese.  At first it looked like shrimp tempura.  But after taking a bite into it, I realized they didn't use the usual panko bread crumbs as breading.  They used real bread (it tasted kinda like fried toast?).  It was crispy, yet soft and airy.  Really really delicious.  The sour plum cream cheese was really good, too.


Sweet Lip Sushi

Our first sushi was called Sweet Lip.  So I've never heard of Sweet Lip before.  Later I kept on referring it as "red lip" for some reason.  haha....  This fish tasted sort of like a red snapper.  It was on the chewy side, and very very good.


Black Sea Bream Sushi

The next sushi was Black Sea Bream.  Again, it was a fish I've never heard of before.  This also tasted similar to red snapper.  I like it a lot, but I thought the Sweet Lip was better.

Whelk Sushi

I got too excited and too hungry and forgot to take a picture of the next sushi.  It was called Whelk.  The sushi chef told us it's a clam.  It was crunchy and sweet.  Yum!


Swordfish Toro Sushi

The 4th sushi we tried was Swordfish Toro.  I never knew they make swordfish sushi.  I am not a big fan of cooked swordfish.  We would've known that swordfish toro tasted this good!  It tasted like a fatty white fish.  It had the chewy texture of fat fish, but yet it was so soft like toro.  Delicious!


Kobe Beef Sushi

The sushi chef was making a lot of sushi.  Some were for us, but mostly for other customers.  When he took out the Kobe Beef, we were whispering to each other, "wow!  Somebody ordered kobe beef sushi.  Fancy!  Must be really expensive."  Then after the chef finished making the sushi, he handed them to us.  We were like, "huh?  What?  These are for us?"  This gotta be the richest beef I've ever had.  The chef cooked the beef with a torch slightly.  It was chewy, fatty, juicy, and heavenly!


Black Sesame Ice Cream with Poured Hot Coffee and Sesame Seed Paste ($4.50)

That concluded our omakase meal.  We were so impressed with the food, and had to try their dessert.  The one we picke was Black Sesame Ice Cream with Poured Hot Coffee and Sesame Seed Paste.  The coffee wasn't hot, maybe the ice cream made it cold.  The sesame ice cream was great.  But we both loved the coffee.  We finished everything with our little spoons.



We love Sushi Ikko.  This was the best meal I've had in Orange County!  For the cheapest omakase, I thought we would get the usual tuna, salmon, yellowtail kind of sushi.  But we got 5 sushi that we've never had before.  All the fish was imported from Japan.  Really high quality stuffs.  We were 100% happy with our omakase meal.  We vowed to return to Sushi Ikko again shortly.

I HIGHLY recommend this restaurant!  Not only people in OC should try it.  You people from LA should drive down here to try it.  It's totally worth it!

My "party" friends from Friday night, maybe we should have a gathering here?  Next month?  ^^

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