Maruhide Uni Club, Torrance

Thanks to Betty Hallock's write up of Maruhide Uni Club, uni lovers from all over the south land have been flocking to this gem in Torrance. The sea urchin comes from Santa Barbara and arrives daily at their processing plant in Long Beach. They even had some live sea urchin on display in the glass refrigerator. I think it's fair to say this place takes uni pretty seriously.

There was something comforting about walking into the restaurant knowing everyone in there was an uni fan. In my experience, people either love or hate uni and unfortunately for me, most of my friends hate uni. Although, I would venture to say this place could change some of their minds. Trying to convince them to go is another story.

The menu is fairly extensive and I went straight to the specialty uni bowl page. There were about 10 options to choose from with two size options: regular ($20 range) or mini ($12 range). The mini bowl looked to be about 1/3 of the size of the regular bowl and wanting to get my uni fix I went with the regular bowl with salmon and yellowtail. The regular bowl comes with salad and soup and the mini bowl comes with soup.

Salad

The salad was very basic. Mixed greens, mostly iceberg and half a cherry tomato drizzeled with a mayo based dressing. No uni in this dish.

Uni soup

I wasn't expecting uni in the soup and was pleasantly surprised at how well the sweetness of the onion worked with the uni. Although the creaminess of the uni texture was lost in this preparation the flavor was still very prominent. I could have easily had another bowl it was so good.

Uni bowl with salmon and yellowtail
20.80

Then the star of the evening arrived. The uni was fresh, creamy with a subtle sweet finish. There were about 10 pieces of uni in the bowl and I savored every piece. The uni omelet was light but rich in flavor from the uni. The salmon and yellowtail were fresh and generous in size. It's hard to eat uni any where else after going to Maruhide Uni Club and I'm already planning our next trip. Maybe we'll try the tasting menu next time. Just need to find two more people that love uni as much as we do. 

Maruhide Uni Club
2130 West Redondo Beach Boulevard 
Torrance, CA 90504