Kaya Sushi
13400 Washington Blvd Ste 102
Marina del Rey

"Let's have sushi for lunch".

I am a no-holdsbar, unabashed lover of all kinds of sushi...especially the wasabi that goes with it (hooray for spicy!) So when someone mentions sushi for lunch...I am all ears. And stomach.

I went to Kaya with my friend Marcie, as it is close and has its' own underground parking (a necessity in Marina del Rey - actually, probably all of Southern California, parking is a virtue). We rushed in for a seat as we were only about 45 minutes away from their lunch siesta. (Although I understand why a lot of Japanese restaurants close during the time inbetween lunch and dinner, it makes it very frustrating when I take later lunches. Which I usually do.)

On to the food!
Marcie got the udon and roll lunch special. Her udon was a huge, steaming bowl of noodles, chock full of broth, sesame seeds and scallions. Dried tofu slices floated around the top. Marcie seemed to enjoy this a lot.
Check out these GINORMOUS California Rolls!! I do like how the crab is not that chunky imitation stuff - seems like the real thing, and is flavored well. The rice was actually really tasty, perfect, translucent little grains of white sushi rice that you come to expect from any good Japanese restaurant, but get really disppointed when you happen upon a place that uses crusty old rice from yesterday's batch. Yuck. Anyways these California Rolls are great. Fresh sweet cucumber, creamy avacado and the aformentioned crab. Here's my sushi lunch combo - chicken teriyaki, 4 pieces of sushi (tuna, whitefish, salmon, sweet shrimp), and 3 pieces each of california roll and tuna roll. This is a LARGE amount of food...the fish was of very decent quality, the teriyaki chicken was pretty standard, not especially great but not bad.

The decor to the restaurant is actually noteworthy as well - the sushi bar is situated on TOP of a huge aquarium with live fish inside. I wonder, do they resort to them if they're running low on specials for the day? Also, they have a waterfall wall, and a drum next to the door with a sign that says, "Hit if you enjoyed the service!!" I hit the drum. So hit up this place!