Review: Sushi Ii in Newport Beach feels like a private sanctum

Last week, I started something new. I launched a COVID Comfort Rating system for restaurants. I’m mothballing the traditional star ratings until we get past this pandemic. I’ll be highlighting how restaurants comply with the safe reopening...

Admittedly, it doesn’t look like much, judging from the photo taken with my phone. It didn’t look like much in the moment, either. Although it’s just one small bite of an hour-long omakase experience at Sushi Ii in Newport Beach, it’s the one bite...

New restaurants don’t just open overnight. Most involve years of planning and months of consternation. Delays are inevitable. Permits take forever. So when the doors finally open it’s always a massive relief. But if you had told any prospective...

When you eat out every day like I do, it’s easy to forget about much of what you eat. But then there are those other meals or dishes that won’t let you stop thinking about them: a pizza, a burger, a bowl of ramen, Spanish, Italian, Bosnian… These...

At a tiny sushi counter in this boundless capital's southwest suburbs, nine of us sat silent and alert waiting for Koji Kimura to finish readying his lunchtime service. We whispered our drink orders to the restaurant’s lone server while listening...