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Gargantuan portions of affordable, quality sushi is a series of words you probably never thought you’d read, or I’d write.

Yokohama didn’t break up the Beatles, but it could have. Seeing the price, coupled with the buttery nigirizushi and generous portion size, would motivate anyone to howl an orgasmic, cement-curdling wail. But it probably wouldn’t push somebody so far as to perform self-indulgant, meaningless performance art, or take credit for punk rock.

Ok, I’ve lost you, but no time for explanations. Witness before you an $8.50 sushi combo. Squal in glee.

The only thing this picture can’t convey is scale. If I had some cartographer’s tools at my disposal, I could have worked up a ruler that shows 1″ = 2′. Matter of fact, I did.

And I don’t mean that the sushi ‘ain’t half bad,’ I mean Yokohama is a place I would actually have dinner and not hide my face in shame.

Most of the time I get the combo, because who wants to throw down $20 for lunch on a weekly basis. Normally, (and I know this is a hideous breach of protocol), I can’t finish it all, and leave a piece or two of my spicy tuna roll.

Yes, the default menu combo comes saddled with, like a bad action movie, the Jessica Albatross hanging around your neck, the horrific mess that gives neophyte sushi eaters a safe launching point –California Roll. You can sub for the spicy tuna roll at no extra cost. Wh-wh-wh-wha? A sushi restaurant that doesn’t charge you an extra $2.00 to get that filthy California Roll subbed with something edible? What happened to the go-for-the-jugular profit motive?

That’s right. This isn’t the chain of fast food restaurants that share the same name as the reviled makizushi previously mentioned. This is a place where the salmon is fresh and delicate, and you can bite all the way through it without snagging your gums on a tough, sinewy line of fat halfway through. The makarel is perfectly marinated and balanced. The rolls are competently spiced.

I’m as shocked and amazed as you are, and I’m probably shooting myself in the foot by revealing this hidden gem. Well, not so hidden, the place is overflowing throughout lunch, and they stop serving -like all good sushi restaurants- at 2pm for their daily siesta. So, therefore, everyone rushes over to cram fish in their mouths. Since frequently go alone, there’s always a spot at the small sushi counter.

Yokohama is a place definitely worth checking out. It sits in an alley between the Wood Fired Pizza place and Best Buy in the Culver City shopping center, and if you’ve ever been there, you can repeat this mantra after me: “No Bally’s Parking.”

Yokohama
3859 Overland Ave
Culver City, CA 90232
(310) 202-7062

By Zteve (see more of his posts). You can find more of Zteve's writing at his own website Gastrologica