A Door To Japan - "I-NABA" (LA Times in
March 2002)
Japonica - Restaurant Review (P. People in May 2003)
Total Pursuit for the Authentic Taste - Restaurant
"I-NABA"
Restaurant
INABA Torrance is
located along Hawthorne Blvd. in the Town Center
plaza. This place is always filled with customers
for both lunch and dinner. Once you enter the restaurant,
the gorgeous tempura bar made of marble and teahouse
style sushi bar welcome you. Their paper lanterns
with sliding paper doors are also outstanding, making
you feel as if you were in Japan.
Torrance INABA
20920 Hawthorne Blvd.
Torrance, CA
310-371-6675
Located on the corner of MacArthur and Fairview,
Restaurant
INABA South Coast stands conveniently
close to South Coast Plaza. An authentic sushi menu
has been added to the spacious and newly appointed
sushi bar at Restaurant INABA South Coast. The restaurant’s
modern,
yet, traditional Japanese-style interior was designed
by Tokuhiro Barada from Tokyo, who is also in charge
of interior design for all INABA group restaurants.
Both the Restaurant INABA South Coast branch and
Torrance branch are dedicated to authentic taste,
loyally keeping to the fundamentals of Japanese
cuisine. They are serving the same taste of sushi
that you can find at Sushiyoshi, the authentic sushi
restaurant in Ginza, and tempura with the taste
from Tenmaru, the best tempura restaurant in Ginza,
Japan. At the newly remodeled South Coast INABA,
the popular hand-made soba is being served daily,
as well as good old Ginza no Youshoku (Japanese
traditional western dish).
South Coast INABA
2901 W. MacArthur Blvd., #108
Santa Ana, CA
Tel: 714-751-6201
INABA’s specialties are tempura, sushi, and
soba. The ingredients they use are thoroughly organic
and fresh, meeting today’s demand for healthy
food.
Crispy tempura items are very popular, especially
at both Torrance and South Coast locations, attracting
many selective tempura fans. The perfect amount
of deep-fried, INABA tempura quickens your appetite
with its look and fragrant smell. Tempura at INABA
is made before you as you sit at their grass-covered
tempura bar. That is what makes INABA unique - you
can enjoy the view and sound of tempura neatly being
made while enjoying your meal. INABA offers various
tempura set menus, and one of their popular tempura
items is Tempura-Gozen ($19.00~30.00), which comes
with fresh and vivid colored sashimi of tuna, yellowtail,
white fish, geoduck, and octopus, and a bowl of
miso soup and a dish of chawan-mushi (steamed egg
custard.)
INABA’s
soba is cordially made by professionals trained
in Japan. It is served using flour freshly ground
in the morning everyday. “We use coarsely-grounded
buckwheat as a main ingredient so that the flavor
of our soba is totally different from others,”
says Mr. Goshi, the manager of the INABA Torrance.
The organic-made soup base enhances the flavor of
the hand-made soba and sets you on a Japanese gourmet
adventure. The stock is made of dried bonito, mackerel,
anchovy, and kombu sea vegetable aged for several
days.
A popular soba item is Ten-Seiro ($9.50), in which
noodles are served cold on a wicker bamboo plate
alongside a bowl of hot broth crowned with kaki-age,
a deep-fried patty of chopped seafood and vegetable
in tempura batter. INABA carries various kinds of
sake as well as wine in 30 varieties. You will surely
find your favorites that go well with your meal.
INABA has been awarded the grand prix for tempura
for two consecutive years, as well as for soba overwhelmingly.
INABA keeps authentic Japanese tastes while pursuing
each customer’s satisfaction. All the professional
chefs at INABA have more than 30 years experience
in Japanese food. The Executive Chief Chef Mr. Maezawa
says, “Enjoy our sensational show while listening
to the subtle sound of fresh shrimp tempura being
made before you.
A Door To Japan
(from Los Angeles Times on March 27, 2002)
The minute I cross the threshold at I-naba, I'm
overcome by déjà vu. In a Torrance
mini-mall, I feel as if I've walked into a restaurant
in a small Japanese town. It's a stylish place
of dainty flower arrangements, slanted mirrors and
mustard-yellow tablecloths. Delicate bamboo shades
shield the windows. All you hear is hushed conversation
and faint music—at least when the sizzling
deep fryer momentarily falls silent.
This spare dining room is not the only
place to eat here, though. Hidden by curtains is
a private tempura bar for customers who advance-order
lavish yorokobi-an dinners. Slightly
worn blue curtains hang above the main kitchen,
but not so low as to hide what the chefs are doing.
Mostly, they are frying. I-naba serves a wide
range of hot and cold Japanese dishes as well as
the obligatory sashimi first course for those with
more to spend. But crisp, clean-tasting tempura
is the main event here. It comes in elegant, complex
set menus; you're supposed to work your way into
tempura gradually (rarely, if ever, will you see
a Japanese diner plunging directly into a fried
food course).
Tempura gozen ($30)
starts with perfectly cut sashimi of tuna, yellowtail,
white fish, geoduck and octopus, followed by a green
salad tossed with a ginger vinaigrette. You also
get a bowl of miso soup and a dish of chawan-mushi
(a custard stocked with ginkgo nuts, shiitake, shrimp
and fish). Then, and only then, comes some
of the best tempura anywhere outside Japan. First,
three long shrimp, tails pointing skyward, flanked
by two pieces of boned sole. These are followed
by a plate of batter-fried green beans, eggplant,
onion, pumpkin and a hot pepper stuffed with a little
ground beef. On the side, there is a dipping
sauce laced with grated white radish. Steamed short-grain
Japanese rice is served in a covered bowl. There
are also salty homemade pickles (tsukemono) cured
in rice wine with rock salt and basil. Expect to
find tiny slices of cucumber, yellow radish and,
if you're lucky, purple basil.
There are options.
Shrimp tempura gozen ($22) gets you some
of the sashimi, no custard and fewer pieces of tempura.
An assorted tempura course ($40), the largest of
the tempura set menus, adds a second wave of tempura,
cold soba noodles and an unexpected dessert, such
as New York cheesecake. Still, tempura isn't
all I-naba serves. One entire page of the menu is
devoted to fried buckwheat noodles (soba) with toppings,
cold with dipping sauce or hot in dashi,
the familiar Japanese broth of dried bonito. There
are bento dinner boxes, pressed sushi dinners and
a variety of wonderful appetizers, a few of which
have surprising touches. I-naba is proud that
it makes its soba by hand. My favorite way to eat
it here is ten-seiro ($9.50), for which the
noodles are served cold on a wickerwork bamboo plate
alongside a bowl of hot broth crowned with kaki-age,
a deep-fried patty of chopped seafood and vegetables
in tempura batter.
The appetizer menu deserves
notice. Washu-gyu is a clone of the incomparably
tender Kobe beef raised in Oregon. It's cut into
bite-sized chunks, broiled and served with dipping
sauce. Oddly, it comes with a big scoop of American
tuna salad, made with plenty of mayo. Perhaps the
chef is attempting a Japanese take on vitello
tonnato. Another appetizer is saikyoyaki,
miso-marinated sea bass broiled in the oven. This
is one of the best fish ideas anywhere, buttery
and sweet with notes of caramel and smoke in every
bite. If you feel adventurous, call a day in advance
and order one of those yorokobi-an dinners
(basically, Japanese tea ceremony food plus tempura
dishes), which range in price from $40 to $70. As
in any Japanese restaurant that serves tea ceremony
food, it's impossible to predict what ingredients
will appear in the meal, only that you can expect
everything to be extremely fresh. And that
tempura, in all its deep fried glory, will be the
featured player in your dinner.
--MAX
JACOBSON, Special to The Times
Japonica
- Restaurant Review by Richard Foss of Penisula People
- this article will be posted later but currently
unavailable
Total Pursuit
for the Authentic Taste "I-NABA"
modern,
yet, traditional Japanese-style interior was designed
by Tokuhiro Barada from Tokyo, who is also in charge
of interior design for all INABA group restaurants.
Both the Restaurant INABA South Coast branch and
Torrance branch are dedicated to authentic taste,
loyally keeping to the fundamentals of Japanese
cuisine. They are serving the same taste of sushi
that you can find at Sushiyoshi, the authentic sushi
restaurant in Ginza, and tempura with the taste
from Tenmaru, the best tempura restaurant in Ginza,
Japan. At the newly remodeled South Coast INABA,
the popular hand-made soba is being served daily,
as well as good old Ginza no Youshoku (Japanese
traditional western dish).
INABA’s
soba is cordially made by professionals trained
in Japan. It is served using flour freshly ground
in the morning everyday. “We use coarsely-grounded
buckwheat as a main ingredient so that the flavor
of our soba is totally different from others,”
says Mr. Goshi, the manager of the INABA Torrance.
The organic-made soup base enhances the flavor of
the hand-made soba and sets you on a Japanese gourmet
adventure. The stock is made of dried bonito, mackerel,
anchovy, and kombu sea vegetable aged for several
days. 
There are options.
Shrimp tempura gozen ($22) gets you some
of the sashimi, no custard and fewer pieces of tempura.
An assorted tempura course ($40), the largest of
the tempura set menus, adds a second wave of tempura,
cold soba noodles and an unexpected dessert, such
as New York cheesecake. Still, tempura isn't
all I-naba serves. One entire page of the menu is
devoted to fried buckwheat noodles (soba) with toppings,
cold with dipping sauce or hot in dashi,
the familiar Japanese broth of dried bonito. There
are bento dinner boxes, pressed sushi dinners and
a variety of wonderful appetizers, a few of which
have surprising touches. I-naba is proud that
it makes its soba by hand. My favorite way to eat
it here is ten-seiro ($9.50), for which the
noodles are served cold on a wickerwork bamboo plate
alongside a bowl of hot broth crowned with kaki-age,
a deep-fried patty of chopped seafood and vegetables
in tempura batter.
