Sushi Ota

Jason and I felt like we hit the jackpot last night when our new friends took us to Sushi Ota. I am not proud to admit this, but we sort of turned into sushi snobs after living in San Francisco for five years. We had been hearing that Sushi Ota is by far the best in San Diego, so we were pumped when our new friends suggested we meet up there.

Turned out we got completely hooked because our friend has been going to Sushi Ota for 22 years since they opened. We had a prime seat at the sushi bar with Akira and for the next two hours we happily ate whatever he wanted to serve us.

The fish they serve comes from all over the place. Some is local, but a large portion comes from the Japanese markets. All of the fish was super fresh, delicious and melted in your mouth.


I really got excited about some of the more adventurous things they served us. One of the courses had a couple small bites of abalone stomach. This was a first for me, which made me very happy. Tasted a lot better than it sounds and was pretty delicious. We also had local shrimp sashimi that was served with their heads on the plate and the heads were still moving. Doesn't get fresher than that. Once you are done with the sashimi, they take the heads and deep fry them (picture below). The heads were amazing and tasted like tempura soft shell crab. Yum.

photo courtesy of yelp.com

 Last but not least, I think we were most excited about the fresh San Diego uni. Jason and I would always try uni at different places, but we never really loved it until now. The uni at Sushi Ota tastes like what you would hope uni would taste like. It had a such an amazing rich, delicate flavor and tasted like the ocean. You can't beat that.

photo courtesy of flickr.com

Sushi Ota was a hit. I may have even told our new friends that I was in love with them at the end of the night. Success.