Back in the nineties, a neighbor named Steve Shagan used to call me up when his wife was out of town and suggest we go out for dinner. He was a social guy, loved to talk, and I don't think he'd ever eaten dinner by himself. He'd been president of the screenwriter's guild and wrote the screenplay for "Save the Tiger." a sixties era movie about Jack Lemmon having the mother of all midlife crises (next to Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty"), so he was pretty entertaining company.
The problem with having dinner with Shagan is that he was obsessed with sushi. He was an obsessive guy and I think he thought about sushi all day, so by the time dinner rolled around, he was not to be denied. I'd try to get him to go to Melvyn's or Billy Reed's or Lyons or Sorrentinos. Nothing do. He was originally from one of the NY boroughs, so his refusal was brusque. "I'm buying, so we're eating sushi. You can drive."
I only got mildly sick once or twice, so it wasn't a complete disaster. The trouble was living in dread of getting sick. Especially when Shagan uttered that dreaded phrase, "I heard about this new place...". I pleaded with him, "Steve, we're 100 miles from the ocean. It's the desert. This is the most inhospitable place on earth to fish. It's wrong and it's dangerous."
"Stop whining and start the car. I'm starving."
I've long since grown out of this prejudice. Kiyosaku was a favorite and I lament its closing. And there are several excellent places to have fish in the Valley--cooked or raw. Sandfish, Ocean...the list is long. So, I sort of amused myself the other day when a friend suggested I try Ponzu downtown. I got a chill up my spine just like the old days. A sushi chill. I agreed to go, but I decided to play it safe and take my food tester. My daughter, Charlie. She's eleven and can scarf a double order of California Roll in sixty seconds.
First of all, I love the location and vibe of Ponzu. It's right downtown and on busy, in-season nights, you could swear you're in a big coastal city somewhere, like Miami. It's a big, open dining room with booths and a curving bar behind which the sushi chefs ply their trade.
Charlie's mom and I started with a couple awesome cocktails--The Last Drink and the Garden Mojito. The latter was the most complex mojito I've ever tasted with St. Germain and white rum. The Last Drink had mezcal, tequila, Ancho Reyes, and passion fruit, The kid decided to forego a cocktail for another ten or twelve years and ordered the soft shelled crab. We all took bites, so we had to order another one just for her. We also ordered brussel sprout chils and vegetable tempura which were all excellent. For our last round of appetizers, we ordered various sashimi. We wait to see if the kid turned green. She happily popped salmon eggs in her gob like they were M&Ms.
But the real star here are the signature rolls. Highly recommended are the Palm Springs with Shrimp tempura and crab salad, the Man Man with snow crab and filet mignon, the Snowflake with salmon and blue fin tuna, and The Beast with spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, albacore, jalapeno, and eel sauce.
Steve Shagan would have made Ponzu his second home.
