My friend Tim was nice enough to want to take me out for my birthday (which was MONTHS ago! I am only catching up now, I've been the worst blogger...), and we headed over to K-Zo, conveniently located in Culver City - one of the best places in LA to park, because of their abundance in parking lots. Hooray! Well, we didn't JUST go to K-Zo for the parking...we had wanted to go for ages since trying to go there earlier this year when it had just opened.
Upon entering - cool cool interior, super relaxing and lots and lots of tea light candles. Don't go here if you're afraid of fire...
Here's an awkward shot of my green tea. Tim and I each got a green tea and they placed our own, mini pot of tea, which they refilled frequently. That was great - the service was top notch here, as they would walk by, notice that I had drunk the tea down to a quarter of the pot, then would obsessively refill it. A constant stream of green tea is good in my book.
First up was the Goma Wild Chicken - Free range chicken nuggets sprinkled with sesame and marinated in house special sauce. This was DELICIOUS. My favorite kind of fried chicken is hands down, Japanese style fried chicken. Cantonese style is what I grew up with, but Chicken Kar-aage is the best. If you haven't tried it, this isn't your corner KFC we're talking about here. We're talking dark meat chicken (my favorite - white meat is too dry!), tender and moist, cut up into bite size pieces, marinated slightly and fried crisp and light, not too greasy.
Tuna, tuna - you are the apple of my eye. Good quality fish, beautiful color - it was an attack on the senses when placing this on your tongue...a good toro can make any day a little brighter.
A very distinctive dish came out next - the Hotate Dynamite - Broiled scallops with mushrooms cooked in house special mayonnaise sauce. This was like the oysters rockafeller that I had on the cruise, but substituting scallops for oysters. And what tasty little scallops they were! Not chewy, good bite, cooked perfectly. The mayo might have been a bit on the heavy side but it's my birthday and I'll drink mayonnaise if I want to.
The old standby, freshwater eel. I usually always get freshwater eel, as sticky sweet as it is. I just love that savory but cloyingly sugary sauce, that distinctive flavor of the eel meat - it's a must have.
A definite favorite of mine is anything tofu related, so we got an order of Agedashi Tofu(Lightly fried tofu in bonito clear broth). Fry anything up and it'll probably taste good - but tofu takes on an especially nice consistency when it's fried...and is more susceptible to flavoring, in this case, the bonito broth and green onion slices. This was eaten quickly.
The special, and last sushi that we got for the night was the Spicy Tuna Crispy - Spicy tuna on baked brown rice cracker. The tuna was nice and spicy, and with that little thinly sliced color coded hot pepper slivers, it was a work of art. The cracker was nice and crispy - a deep hearty flavor, which complimented the tuna nicely. 
Lastly, as a finishing note to the meal, they gave me a scoop of black sesame ice cream, with a perfect raspberry and sprig of mint for color. Creamy, flecked with the black sesame, this was a good ending to a delicious meal.K-Zo was really relaxing - Tim was very impressed with the atmosphere and music selections (music is his thing!), and I enjoyed the food greatly. I'll be visiting here again!
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