Yearning for (Better) Yellowtail at Yanagi - Torrance

To say that I'm prone to obsession would be an understatement. There are no words too casual, no details too small, no molehills too low to be made into a mountain. But I have few obsessions I can tell people about without making them scoot away or fall asleep. 

One such obsession is my latest foodie obsession with the collarbones of fish. Wow, that sounded less stupid in my head. No hard feelings if you scoot away from your screen.

But after all that melt-in-your-mouth salmon collar at Kanpai, I wanted to try every collar in Socal, and Yanagi was where I would start. And for some reason, a random stand-alone Japanese bistro in the middle of PCH didn't seem like a bad idea.

Yanagi may be an island on the PCH, but I doubt they fished the Salmon Kama straight out of any ocean. The meat was hard, and I think all the fat dried up.

The Hamachi Kama wasn't much more exciting. The white flesh is less flavorful, barely seasoned, and the taste lacks color as much as the meat. And while there are few things better than flame-kissed fish, the hamachi probably made out with the flames because half of it tasted like ash. 

The sushi is socal fresh, but it's about as exciting as the stuff you pick up from whole foods. Just your typical Spicy Scallop, Salmon, and Spicy Tuna rolls. Clearly all the fire went into the kama because the spicy sauce lacked serious spark. The specialty rolls definitely looked better, but I could buy an entire fish for those prices.

I know I've been a little hard on Yanagi, but no harder than their kama. And I hope all that criticism of the kama doesn't hurt my karma, but let's just say I'd brave the airport traffic to Kanpai every time I'm craving kama.