Last night, I went with a bunch of friends to Torrance to have dinner at Torihei. I have noticed Torihei from my previous visits to its neighbor Musha but never thought to try the food there. Well I'm glad that one of my friends thought to have a little dinner gathering there, otherwise, I would have been missing out on some great Japanese food. Although my taste buds were quite delighted at most of the dishes, there were a few that just wasn't my cup of milk tea. For example, there was the pickle cucumber and radish (or turnip?) dish. Fully pickled they were not. It is just wrong to do the whole half @$$ pickled thing (不酸不淡，都不知道這道菜應該是什麽味道）. I've never been a fan of the Japanese fish cake. Never. I don't know why, I can't explain it. It just doesn't appeal to me. Therefore I can't really rave about how great the fish cake in oden soup was like the other people. I liked the soup though. The chicken cartilage, fried and not fried, was also kinda bleh. Bland. In my not so humble opinion, the fried cartilage not only needed to be fried an itsy bit longer, it also need more seasoning. The fried turnip cake in oden soup was also kinda bleh. Maybe it's the Cantonese pride in me talking but I really do believe that we make the best turnip cake. I've had turnip cake made in many different ways and well I still prefer the Cantonese style better. I really just think that dunking small chunks of turnip cake in soup is a bad idea, it just ends up tasting a little mushy.
Now on to the good stuff. Yakitori...OMG...so good. I think Torihei has taken over Shin-sen gumi as my favorite yakitori place. The prices are cheaper but the proportions are bigger. The gizzards that we ordered were twice the size of the ones served at Shin-sen gumi. The grilled at avocado with the salty vinegar sauce, grilled cherry tomatoes, chicken thigh, torihei meatballs, bacon wrapped okra and asparagus...yummy. I'm still thinking about it right now. Probably because I had nothing good to eat today. I also really liked the oden soup dishes, well except the turnip cake, mochi, and fish cake. Those I can live without. I did enjoy was the big tomato with mozarella cheese, the broth came out tasting like tomato bisque, at least that was how my friend described it. Oh and the semi-boiled egg filled with smelt roe. The semi-hard boiled egg was sliced in half and the yolk was mixed with smelt roe. OMG! It was amazing. I have to show you guys the pics. :) Dinner was awesome. 
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