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Uncle Orson's Restaurant Guide
Obachine
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hef Naoki Uchiyama is constantly adding inspired combinations of eastern cuisines to the menu in this Beverly Hills haven. Until I started eating here, I didn't think I liked most oriental food. And I thought sushi and sashimi sounded barbaric. So imagine my surprise when, as a guest of a noted computer game designer, I was pressured into trying the raw fish and found that, at Obachine, at least, I enjoyed it greatly. Not only that, but several friends — and my adventurous daughter Emily — have come to agree with me.
But it wasn't the sushi and sashimi that brought me there! No, I kept coming back again and again for one reason, and it was enough: The ten-spice salmon wrapped in a tea leaf. I love salmon. But until I had this salmon dish, I had never understood just how good it could be. No one spice dominates, so that what emerges is a new flavor that is definitely salmon, but with a symphony behind it.
In the many months that I've been coming here, I finally forced myself to order something besides the ten-spice salmon as an entree. Tonight, for instance (13 June 1998), I had the grilled lemon and ginger chicken, served with pad Thai vegetables, and discovered a new favorite. The spices are richly applied and yet remain subtle in their combinations.
Obachine's entrance is unpretentious. Indeed, when you enter it can seem a narrow and a little dark. (The outdoor dining consists of only a couple of tables.) But when you go upstairs (via stairway or elevator), you find a large, open dining room with a spacious ceiling and the kitchen like an Elizabethan stage thrust from one wall into the heart of the room. It can be noisy — especially when some insists on playing an entire Cheryl Crow album as background music — but the service is attentive and gracious and management often comes to chat for a moment, unless you seem engrossed in your own conversations.
Are there flaws? Well, let's just say that the desserts are a bit too adventurous for me, and I wish their still water were something other than the obnoxious Evian. But these are faint drawbacks when the food is so good and the service so pleasant. Don't bother telling them Orson Card sent you — they'll treat you splendidly no matter whom you know ...
Obachine
Beverly Hills
A block north of Wilshire on Beverly, on the right. Valet parking or a self-parking lot just before the Obachine building. And take note: There's a Baskin-Robbins diagonally through the block, if you must have dessert.
310-274-4440