Yesterday, I ate lunch by myself at a restaurant and am proud of myself. 🙂 It was always one of those things I always feared of doing and had plenty of excuses to postpone trying the inevitable. The fear of sitting alone and eating lunch at school was always something I managed to avoid. Even going to college at UCLA, I managed to never eat alone. If I didn’t have anyone to eat with, I would skip the dining halls and head straight to Bruin Cafe or Rendezvous, grab a meal on the go, and eat in my dorm room. There have been multiple instances where I would really want to try a restaurant, but wouldn’t have anyone to go with. That fear of eating alone will now stop holding me back from eating wherever I want to eat. Yesterday, my classes got cancelled one by one and surprisingly coming up free time on a Tuesday gave me the perfect opportunity to eat by myself. I mean, it was a Tuesday morning, on a weekday, and very last minute.

I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place to try dining by myself: Kazunori, the Original Hand Roll Bar. The restaurant layout of Kazunori is very small and simple. It consists of a U-shaped bar table with the sushi chefs on the inside and the clients sitting on the outside facing inward. The layout of the restaurant made it perfect for stand-alone customers to eat alone. It wasn’t actual tables! Furthermore, Kazunori features a very simple amount of hand rolls, so I was able to sample everything by myself. It wasn’t one of those restaurants where I would lose out on eating alone because either: I would only be able to order 1-2 dishes for myself in an attempt to finish or I would order many and have too much leftovers and a large bill to split with no one.

Kazunori also participates in dineLA. For the lunch menu, for $15pp, you can get salmon sashimi, toro hand roll, cucumber hand roll, and crab hand roll. That sounds like a very cheap steal, with the whole bill potentially being less than $20. However!! Their original menu is always the best I think, especially when I factor into driving distance, gas and parking fees in the crazy DTLA region, I might as well go all out!

For just $23, I get 6 rolls in the following order: toro hand roll, yellowtail hand roll, salmon hand roll, scallop hand roll, crab hand roll and a lobster hand roll. For JUST $7, I get 3 extra hand rolls minus the sashimi!!! *gasps*

Of course, for the first time, they offered a temporary special menu item: salmon skin hand roll and uni hand roll. I couldn’t resist since I don’t come here often so for an extra $11, I opted an additional uni hand roll that includes TWO WHOLE PIECES OF UNI inside.

Now to talk about their hand rolls: why and how are they so special and so good while being so simple and little? All of their hand rolls are the following features: very fresh fish or shellfish in their purest forms, warm rice and crispy seaweed. You need to eat these right away!!! (I am a fast picture taker in this sense, but even I was not good enough). YOU MUST EAT THESE RIGHT AWAY OR ELSE THE RICE AND FISH WILL SEEP INTO THE SEAWEED AND MAKE IT SOGGY; THEN BITING INTO THE HAND ROLL WILL BE DIFFICULT. These hand rolls are meant to be eaten RIGHT AWAY while the seaweed is still FRESH and CRISP so that your teeth just sinks straight through the seaweed and rice and fish and you can just tear a clean, clean bite. Period. Do I sound like a monster now?? LOL..

Toro hand roll.

Yellowtail hand roll.

Salmon hand roll.

Scallop hand roll.

Crab hand roll.

Lobster hand roll.

Uni hand roll.

Overall, I had a very good experience here. Kazunori has never disappointed me and it’s been many years since I first discovered this place. Furthermore, eating by myself here wasn’t too bad. I actually really enjoyed the quiet and zen experience in which it was just me, myself and camera. I was able to take pictures of the food as I pleased, ate at whatever pace that I want, not need to talk to anyone, just enjoy the food and the flavors in my mouth, and leave at my own pace. It was liberating!!

Of course, that doesn’t mean to say I will rather eat alone now. I still like groups to allow the ability to order many plates and items to taste many things in one sitting. There are always pros and cons to every scenario. 🙂