LAReview
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Shojin
Included In
Hollywood loves a remake. For good reason - those films make more money in three days than you’ll make in a lifetime, and that includes the money you saved with all your Bed Bath & Beyond Coupons. But the key to a great remake isn’t to give us a movie we already know - it’s to transform an old movie into something entirely new. The same goes for restaurants.
Take Shojin, the vegan sushi restaurant in Little Tokyo. This place works because their sushi isn’t trying to trick you into thinking it’s fish, and the space isn’t trying to imitate what you might expect from a traditional sushi restaurant.
The whole Shojin experience starts the moment you make a reservation. Instead of calling or hitting a button on an app, you fill out a long form on their website that feels like you’re applying for a passport. Once you arrive at the third-floor space in a massive mall in Little Tokyo, you’ll find the windows are tinted like it’s some sort of nightclub, and the door is just a heavy curtain that might be one those lead vests you wear for x-rays at the dentist.
But Shojin is far from a nightclub, a dentist’s office, or even a sushi bar. There are wrought-iron chandeliers, black leather chairs, and jazz covers of Cheap Trick playing over the loudspeaker. If you didn’t know any better, you might think you were in some snoozy dinner spot on Wilshire where people go to eat trout at 5:45pm. But then you open the menu, and see that’s not at all what’s happening here.
photo credit: Jakob Layman
The first thing any meat-eater wants to know about a vegan restaurant is whether they should even go there. Meat-eaters should go to Shojin - but not because the food is mind-blowingly good (it’s not) or because it somehow tastes like raw fish (it doesn’t). You should come here to appreciate what legitimately inventive vegan food looks and tastes like.
Shojin’s standouts include tempura zucchini blossoms stuffed with pumpkin, apricot, and tomato and a spicy baked “scallop” roll topped with mushrooms and onions that’s blowtorched at your table. Those dishes are more successful than others (skip the watery ramen), but when flavors are at their most intense (the rolls) and presentations at their most elaborate (also the rolls), this is the kind of unique dining situation that anyone will enjoy. Not because you’re eating vegan sushi - but because you’re eating Shojin.
Food Rundown
Golden Zucchini Blossoms
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Spicy “Tuna” on Crispy Rice
photo credit: Jakob Layman
Shiso Gyoza
Spicy Baked Scallop Roll
photo credit: Jakob Layman