Flyin Fin UPDATE - Redondo Beach

Eating in China gave me an iron stomach. Other people get sick from the simplest of street foods, and a cafeteria epidemic took down half the medicine department this year. I, on the other hand, haven't had food poisoning for 15 years.

I love being able to stomach the best of foods and the worst of foods, but I do miss certain luxuries when I'm abroad. Aside from insects and horrifying arachnids, one of few things I actively avoid is Chinese sushi. After two weeks of deprivation, I would have killed for some Package A at Flying Fin when I got back.

Good things come in small packages, but this package only starts small. The Miso Soup and Edamame are standard, and Flyin Fin builds up from here.

The half-portions of Seaweed Salad and Calamari Salad are sweet little snacks. The calamari is cold and soaked with one of the best marinades I've ever had, and both bites give your appetite a boost.

The Mixed Tempura is a pretty big basket, full of lightly-battered veggies and shrimp. The sweet potato will always be a fave, but they get major props for making all the tempura taste really good... Even the onion is edible.

I shelled out for the Package A because the 26 pieces of Mixed Sashimi are show-stopping. They're so fresh that they taste more sweet than briny, and you never know exactly what you're going to get. The Bluefin tuna is lean but the texture and flavor-burst makes it taste like toro. The salmon is slippery and slides right down, and the Tasmanian salmon is a little richer, delivering some extra oomph. I thought the yellowtail was great, but the baby yellowtail is a whole different ballgame, so impossibly delicate and refined. The halibut knocked it out of the park, and although I don't know what sauce that is, I sure am glad it's there.

The chef slipped me some Mackerel once, and not only was it the first mackerel I didn't hate, it was delicious! It was vinegary but sweet, and for once, it didn't have the smell or aftertaste of a Chinatown sewer. Individual orders of Female Octopus are fragrant and tender, and sometimes you get sizeable Scallops, with a zesty lemon and a yuzu sting.

Witchcraft! What other explanation could there be? An expensively yet fairly priced place that keeps me coming back week after week. It is an addiction that puts me in the poorhouse yet I cannot stop this madness. I am hypnotized by the bluefin, I am a slave to the salmon, I cannot sleep for my love of sashimi. Sorry to the other sushi places in South Bay, but Flyin Fin has me bewitched.

Flying Fin Sushi and Seafood - Redondo Beach

Move over, Kantaro, Flying Fin is topping my list of favorites. I never thought I'd fall for fusion, but fresh fish with a new-school style got hook, line, and sinker.

The degree to which I enjoyed the Meat Up! made me feel dirty. It hardly qualifies as sushi, but the smooth steak with crab, spicy tuna, and shrimp tempura is a cogent combination of surf n' turf stuffed into a single sheet of soy paper. It tastes even better in an oriental sauce of politically incorrect sesame and garlic.

The weirdness doesn't end at steak. The combinations are often traditional with an unexpected spin, but the flavors always effectively mesh. The King Cobra, for example, is an upgrade of the caterpillar. Same sweet eel and avocado, but somehow the tempura and crab bring out the eel to make the roll more robust.

The Mega Omega 3 sounds like a mouthful of hot mess, but the flavor-fusion rounds out. The salmon tempura adds crunch to the spicy tuna and smooth avocado. The sweet n' tangy sauces on top really bring out the fresh salmon flavor.

The Top Secret got out a long time ago. Soy paper-wrapped tuna and salmon topped with fresh mango is colorful and fruity-fresh, but it's definitely been done before. I've seen this movie, but I didn't mind seeing it again.

There's a reason the classic rolls do well when revamped, and the Absolute Amazing roll was no exception. Real crab topped with avocado is basically California, and the salmon, shrimp, and tuna toppers were a rainbow roll but better.

The Oh Crab! is a spider roll on crack. The soft shell crab weaves a seductive web, and when it catches some extra crab meat, this combo can't miss.

The Flying Fin roll just nails it. A flawless combo of crab and tuna, tempered with a crunchy jalapeño burn makes for a bite that bites back.

The rolls are new and exciting, but they do the classics just as well. The Yellowtail Collar, for example, is well-grilled with crispy, salted skin and soft meat in the middle.

The Salmon Toro Carpaccio steals the show. Rich, oily, fatty bellies of pink, melt-in-your-mouth, linger-on-your-tongue salmon holds its own against the fattiest of tuna, and the sauce leaves an impression that lasts.

I felt like I was cheating on real sushi with all these rolls, but their quality is simply a sneak peak at the sushi and sashimi to come. And unlike other sushi places that simply use the fish to pile it on, the flavor combinations are carefully calibrated here. I don't usually love fusion, but Flying Fin is pulling it off in flying color.