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"A++ in my book. Ive tried most of the Ramen joints in the Sawtelle/Little Tokyo/Asian Corridor area, and I must say Ramenya is my favorite.…" read more »
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Blue Marlin is one of my favorite spots on Sawtelle for a fun and fusion japanese lunch/dinner experience. Seated smack bad in the middle of the strip mall containing Hurry Curry and Manpuku, BM's menu offers a wide variety of japanese style 'comfort food items' like curry, hot pot, italian-style pastas and my personal favorite, their omelete aka 'om-rice' dishes.
The om-rice comes prepared in multiple styles topped with various items like BBQ beef, curry, tonkatsu, uni cream sauce and seafood. All of them are winners and quite filling, along with the appetizer salad served with most of the entrees. Their curry is also prepared noticeably different from their immediate neighbors (Curry Haus and Hurry Curry) with regards to the lack of starch or other thickening agents being used, leading to a much thinner consistency curry sauce. This is however not a turnoff and when served with a typical cutlet or beef/chicken, works quite well, especially when served hot and bubbling in a cast iron skilled plate.
I'll continue to go here for lunch when guests or friends want to eat on Sawtelle until I move out of the area, or LA altogether.
OM RICE TONKATSU PORK ON TOP!!!!
Epic
Uni Spaghetti
Epic!
YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
GO NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GREAT PRICE!
Of the places in the neighborhood, I do come here more often than others. I've criticized it for inconsistent food, quality, portions, but still try to overlook their faults as I find their food unique. Tonight it was me, friends, and what? (turns head) cockaroach?!! We were enjoying our meal, minding our own business, when we realized, a cockaroach popped out behind our heads for a visit.
For about two minutes we had a bit of a scene as the Cockaroach wandered around and freaked some of our friends out. We tried to squash the cockaroach, but it proved elusive, and we couldn't then tell which direction he ran off in. We eventually got reseated to a different part of the restaurant.
The staff apologized. I know it's sometimes uncontrollable, but still, maybe the manager should have applied some damage control? Cockaroaches in your restaurant does not go over well with Yelpers let alone the health department. Maybe when I asked for a piece of bread you shouldn't still try to charge $1.40 for it? Worse yet, maybe after the whole cockaroach thing, maybe you shouldn't insist on tacking 18% service charge onto the bill because we had 6 in our party. That was pretty excessive given the cockaroach and the service certainly did not deserve 18%. So we ended being forced to tip over and on top for dealing with uninvited cockaroaches at our dinner table. They should have been happy if we went easy and gave them 15% after all that. Yet they added it in, and pointed it out. This is why the whole tipping standard is out of control in LA. Go figure. They should have been glad we didn't cause a scene and just leave. Not sure if I'll be back so soon after how they handled that one.
So to sum it up. Cockaroaches, cockaroaches, cockaroaches.
Yep, I associated the word cockaroach with Blue Marlin a total of 12 times in this review.
Just an update on their Omm Rice. I've had their hamburger cutlet Rice before, which had a beef… Read more »
As a repeat customer of this restaurant, I have never tried anything other than its OM-Rice. After all, this place may have the best OM-Rice in the area and the best I have ever had. So if it's not broken, why fix it?
As often as I want to explore other options, its "Omakase" (or weekly special) OM-Rice is my usual approach, allowing the chefs to put their creativity to work. If I don't like to the ingredients in the weekly special, I just go with the Uni OM-Rice, which is always one of the anchor dishes of Blue Marlin, in my opinion.
True, this place might not deserve the five stars. Its service is slow; its operation is painfully inefficient, thus omitting orders from our party on multiple occasions. Nevertheless, I am always excited to come back to this place, as this is the only place on Sawtelle that creates food that inspires (Ok, That might be a little bit cheesy).
As for Curry House/Tofu Ya/Hong Kong Cafe/Asahi Ramen- I'm sorry, you're replaceable as there are many other restaurants in LA serving what you are serving... Blue Marlin's OM-Rice is a beast of its own.
Big om rice makes me go OMMMMMM. I tried:
om-rice with curry
om-rice with tomato sauce
om-rice with bbq
om-rice with seafood
om-rice special
om-rice with uni
OMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOM.
Full.
To my surprise, this place was actually really good. I didn't expect much out of it but my friends drag me in here and the meals were delicious. om-rice was good and nicely spiced. The tomato burger thing was also good.
The service was good and the people in this area are very nice. If anyone hasn't noticed, the theme of the inside of the restaurant takes place in an underwater sea. When you look up, you can see the sun shining through the surface and the fishes and boat afloat. An interesting place indeed.
I usually go there for the Omi-rice, the flavor is usually a bit sweeter than what I like but I like the portion (huge). My favorite is the uni-omi-rice (sea urchin sauce), creamy and rich.
This time we had Chicken Cutlet Curry Doria, it was the best dish I had in Blue Marlin. Doria is a Japanese-style rice gratin. A pretty Le Creuset pot fill with rice cooked with chicken and onion, curry sauce, top with chicken cutlet, and finally send to oven with lots of cheese...Yum yum yum!
It's not my 1st time to this place, but I was super disappointed on New Year's Day when we visited again. The food was still really good, and that's the only reason why I would give it 3 stars.
Service was super slow, the waitress got my order wrong and when it came I had a puzzled look. She goes "well, you want it?" Hmmm... ok... I'll take it because we were already waiting for almost 30 minutes. My eating companion's dish did not come until 15 minutes after mine arrived. We were trying to flag down the waitress and she just ignored us the entire time.
We waited around for the check to come and it wasn't happening so we went up to the counter to pay. That took forever too.
So in summary, if you're not in a hurry this place would be good because the food tastes great.
Blue Marlin always does food right - especially with their pastas and curry rice. Good curry always consists of a mix of different curry rues and this place always satisfies the palate.
Portions are large and enough to take home as well. Another Sawtelle institution here folks.
Went here with a bunch of friends for lunch, and all of our food was pretty terrible. I had a salad - how do you mess up a salad? And yet there it was, completely flavorless, and with a super-sugary dressing that sort of negated the point of ordering a salad in the first place.
The other people at my table got a few of the house specials, a pasta dish, and a meat dish. All of them were terrible, and I should point out that this group is not a bunch of foodies/picky eaters in any way.
We will not be going here again, and with all of the other wonderful choices along Sawtelle, I don't see why anyone does!
My friend from LA took me here last weekend for lunch and boy, was it a lot of food! We shared the SEAFOOD RISOTTO, which was pretty yummy but a little bit too creamy. I'm a fan of the cream sauce though so i still thought it was really good. Also shared the OMELET RICE W/FRIED CHICKEN and salad special, which was also very delicious. The fried chicken was cut a bit too big though...maybe smaller pieces and it'd be perfect. It was a LOT of food and we totally couldn't finish, so u definitely get ur money's worth. I'd definitely come back next time I go to LA =)
I love this restaurant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!!!!!! Sea Urchin on everything please? Definitely a diamond in the rough.. Wish they would deliver to NY =(
This is one of my favorite places on Sawtelle. I usually get the sea urchin & spinach spaghetti. It doesn't sound great, but it is actually their second most popular dish next their om rice & they're both super delectable! Went there on New Year's Day and decided to try something new, which was their oriental style spaghetti vongole. It was very tasty. I love the concept of Japanese/Italian fusion & this place has it down right. The prices are reasonably cheap. The service, however, can be a little inconsistent. Parking is also tricky since it's located in a strip mall.
The first couple times I came here I thought it was OK, not that great (I came back bc friends like it). After a while, I figured out that it really depends on what you order here. Some of the dishes are pretty bad (risotto is meh, some fish dishes also meh); some they execute well, others are unique.
Their om-rice with katsu and curry is pretty delicious, and the portion is huge! Other curry dishes are good; I really like their curry with creamy crab croquette. The curry is flavorful and it seems like they add something else in it other than just what you could make out of a package at home. Personally, I enjoy their uni spaghetti. I like both their uni spaghetti (creamy version that's just called uni spaghetti) and their uni spaghetti w/ spinach (lunch special version, sauteed with soysauce and not with a cream sauce).
Other thing I've had and enjoyed - chilicarbonara with an egg yolk (a spaghetti dish with carbonara sauce, bacon, brocolli and an egg yolk you get to stir in yourself). yum!
I'm an expert at making omurice,
and this place makes a pretty good one..
The udon here isn't half bad either and pretty cheap.
The curry is less than stellar though.
Hi Martin.
i agree with the 3.5 overall
i think the curry is done better here than hurry curry of tokyo and curry house nearby. the katsu is much more tender (not dried out)
i think the omurice is where it's at -- the uni is massive, rich, and creamy, not something you find everywhere. i'd avoid the miso salmon -- healthy but minimal flavor
Blue Marlin's curry dishes looked fabulous in the yelp local photos, so I couldn't help but indulge. I chose the pork katsu curry and it was even tastier than it looked! Crispy pork katsu stuffed with grilled mushrooms and served in a bath of smooth Japanese curry with a side of rice.... let's just start with the curry itself: Smooth and savory, just thick enough to keep it from flooding the rice, but thin enough to appear smooth and appetizing. This in my opinion is curry at its best...plain and simple. The rice was the seasoned variety, but was cooked in that way where it's dry on the tongue yet sticks together very well. Then there is the katsu... fried to the goldest of golden brown and stuffed healthily with grilled mushrooms. The flavors are bold enough to come through a good soaking of the curry, but all balance well.
I also got the opportunity to try the rice omelet that a friend got... equally excellent... but I'm all about the curry.
If you love life, you should avoid this place.
I was sucked into the fuckass madness because someone tempted me with uni pasta. UNI PASTA I tell you. The uni gods are looking over me. No more driving down to the south bay for Spoonhouse. Thank you Uni God.
Except. It was a major FAIL.
First of all, there is a 15 dollar CC minimum. WTF. OK That's fine. I'll deal with it. As long as I get my sweet, sweet uni. I ordered an iced tea (which was never refilled) and 6 dollar crab croquettes along with my uni pasta.
They give you a complimentary salad which had lots of shredded carrot and wilted lettuce and a orange dressing. Gross. My crab croquettes came shortly after and it was sitting in spaghetti sauce + soy sauce. Oh gross. But I ate it anyway.
Finally. On to the big show. The UNI UNI UNI pasta that was promised to be so 'creamy' and better than 'spoonhouse'. OK Wait. Why is it sitting in soy sauce. It's supposed to be a light cream based sauce mixed with creamy uni. WTF is this. Granted there is a shit load of uni but it was weird in color. Maybe tainted by the 8 gallons of soy sauce. I tried my best to finish but i couldn't. I was going to have a heart attack. Not to mention the pasta was UNDERCOOKED.
See pics.
http://lovelifehatekit...
OMG. Everything started to piss me off from the waiter to the stupid fucking sealife mural on the ceiling. FUCK YOU DOLPHINS. FUCK YOU. In fact, I was so god damn pissed off I wanted to run some children over as I was leaving the parking lot. FUCK YOU CHILDREN.
Oh, not to mention in additino to a 24 dollar lunch (tax and tip included), valet is MANDATORY.
Fuck you Uni God. with no vaseline.
Service was great, but also probably because there was only 1 other table besides us here on a weekday at noon during lunch. I knew something was up when there weren't many people there. My friend asked the waitress if it was just slow today, and she said no, its always like this... Great.
A+ for service, D for food.
We had the uni pasta, seafood risotto, and crab croquettes. Portions were small, I was still hungry after. The croquettes were good, but way too small and not worth the price. The pasta just didn't taste good at all, and the seafood risotto was way too salty.
Probably won't come here again.
I gave this place two shots and both times disappointed. I don't think this place executed Japanese / Italian fusion that well.
The fried oysters are good - they weren't over fried and still had some oyster juice in them that squirts out in your mouth.
My boyfriend got the uni risotto which was heavy and unappetizing. I got the 7 spices salmon which was inedible; just because you heavily season something doesn't make it good. all I tasted was the grainy spices...I didn't even know I was eating a piece of fish. I scrapped off all the spices that the salmon was coated with, but by then, the fish was unsalvageable.
The *other* dishes here may be fabulous, but I had the Uni Risotto with cream sauce... pretty simply done, kinda rich (as expected), really nothing fabulous about it. :-/
Had the fried oysters too. They were okay. Service was also only so-so, our waters never got refilled til we asked.
I'd been once or twice waaaay long ago and remembered it being much better, so I think I will have to go back some other time and get something else. Some of the remarks here on the curry and the omelets have me craving them...
I absolutely love this restaurant!
I always come here since I live nearby.
The seafood gratin with rice & sea urchin omlette rice are delicious favorites~
The risottos are great as well & most of the omlette rice dishes have not disappointed me!
The salad served at the beginning is tasty as well! Their dressing is good and i love veggies!
Servers are very friendly & make you feel comfortable!
Blue Marlin, I wish I still loved you as I once did, but you've changed... and it's not for the better...
Of all the Japanese curry places on sawtelle, this one used to be my favorite. But now it seems like prices keep going up and quality and quantity is getting worse and worse. As a caffeine addict, I make it a point to get coffee as often as I can and I just so happen to have an affinity for Japanese iced coffees. Unfortunately, the one I have was a little "meh". A bit watered down and costs $4.
The beef curry plate looked like curry sprinkled with beef. There was probably like 7 tiny chunks in the whole thing! The side salad also seems less fresh than before.
And at the end of my meal, I saw a bug climbing up the wall... yeah... sort of ewww.
I don't think I'll be back anytime soon, but I might be back in the future. Hopefully, at that point, it'll be better than it is now, not worse.
You know when you were young and you didn't really know much about cooking. Yet you'd still read up on recipes and experiment around with different ingredients and throw shit together? Your meats end up overcooked, you keep over seasoning hoping it'll end up tasting better. Resulting in an end product that is clearly amateur. Still in spite of that, the food is still meh, not terrible, but you wouldn't want to make it/ eat it again nor force it upon your friends.
That pretty much sums up Blue Marlin in a nutshell.
I'd avoid the om- rice and the wannabe risotto. Smelled good, didn't look very good, tasted slightly below ok. But that wasn't the worst part. Can you please tell me how they managed to f' up a green iced tea? It just tasted off. And the syrup sweetener that accompanied it was extremely watered down and just plain nasty. Needless to say, I didn't get a refill.
Very disappointing. Upon hearing that I would be dining at a Japanese- Italian fusion restaurant, my expectations were set high because of all the potential. Unfortunately, their execution fell short. Not the best, not the worst, but not that great at all. Service was also okay.
I ordered uni omelet which are two of my favorite things. The idea was good but execution is a little less flavorful then I had hoped. I think it would be better with some more garlic. Like always parking in this center is quite challenging in the evenings so beware.
I go this joint probably once a week. It's japanese/italian fusion with an extensive menu and weekly specials. The price is extermely affordable, entrees range from 10-15.00. It's actually not a bad place to take a girl out on a first lunch date where you dont' want to spend a lot of money but still want some unique food. They got all kinds of pastas you can't find anywhere else like sea urchine. I had many of their pastas, big portion and tasted good.
Risottos are nothing special, but does the job. Curry is ok too. The Omurice is huge, so definitely share that with someone and order some side dishes instead. The chicken salad is great with the special japanese style salad dressing.
Overall, it's a cool little fusion joint. Go check it out, it wont break your budget.
What happened?
This was me and my bf's default restaurant, you know... when you cannot for the life of you think of ANYWHERE to eat, you go to that one restaurant that's your safe place...
Well, this is not the case anymore.
I'm not sure if the chefs changed or what, but the food is just not what it used to be. I used to get the creamy uni over rice, J would get the BBQ beef Om-rice and we'd be set. We've tried the other items like the katsu and pastas, but these were our favorites.The portions were always hefty, which was great because the food was actually tasty so we would eat the rest later. However, after another recent visit in the last month our hearts have been broken and our expectations shattered.
Maybe we might give this place another try due to our long love affair, but it won't be anytime in the near future. I hope they change their chefs/waitstaff and get their shit together!
I had their Hayashi Omurice (a Weekly Special) and it was delish! The omelet part was to die for! So soft and yummy! For the Hayashi Omurice, it's the semi-cooked omelet that they place on top of your rice instead of the kind that wraps around the whole thing (if that makes sense). If you've watched Lunch Queen, you know what I'm talking about. The portions are HUGE! If you don't eat that much, I highly recommend splitting an omurice order with a friend or else you'll end up taking half home for lunch or dinner for the following day (which is what I ended up doing! xP Yum!)
The only problem with the Hayashi Omurice was that the beef was really, really tough. We had a hard time cutting it into bit size pieces. =[ My friend gave up and put a whole piece of beef in her mouth and was stuck chewing it for awhile. Fortunately, the omelet, rice, and demiglaze sauce went so well together that I actually overlooked the overcooked beef. Maybe it's the Jidori chicken and eggs that give it the added boost in deliciousness. :]
I tried some of my roomie's seafood omurice in the cream sauce and it was good too. She really likes seafood and totally loved her dish!
One major WARNING: if you order a Weekly Special during dinner, they charge $2 more! My friend and I did not see the fine print on the menu and thought they made a mistake on the bill. It came out to being $13 for my order, which is a bit pricey for me. However, I'll definitely be back when I'm in the mood for a special *egg-tastic* treat! :P
Curry's still good... but what happened to the service?
The chicken katsu curry is slightly expensive compared to Hurry Curry a few doors down, but it still tastes way better.
Blue Marlin has the best curry along Sawtelle Blvd. Wait, nevermind. It wasn't even a race to begin… Read more »
Right off the bat, I will say that Blue Marlin definitely has hits and misses. I've tasted some of their soup noodle dishes and they are pretty blah - nothing exciting at all.
However, I go for pretty much one thing: Uni Risotto. You can't find it everywhere and they make it great here. It's a good balance between the rice and uni and at $14 is a great deal.
Pair that with their Dynamite Appetizer and ask for some bread to dip in the sauce and you're set.
nothing good¬hing bad about this restaurant.
i dont think im going back cuz i can cook probably better or so.
it always looks slow.
I totally agree with Julianne L's review on Blue Marlin.
This place use to serve up some really good curry, but not as of late. The rice is a bit too mushy & the curry is definitely watered down. On my last visit, I ordered croquette curry and although it looked like perfection on the outside, the inside looked like uncooked pancake batter. I'm not sure if this was another version of croquette that I'm just not used to, but I'm pretty sure on previous visits they weren't prepared like this.
Also, did they just add the "$15 minimum order for purchase with credit card" rule? It was nice of the waitress to waive the rule for me "this time." Kind of a bummer as I almost never carry cash with me. I don't think I'll be visiting this place again. Sad!
My favorite lunch (and sometimes dinner) place when we are in Sawtelle/Little Osaka area.
This place is known for their large selection of curries, spaghetti, and om-rice (omlet covered rice). But generally me and my ppl are fixated on a couple of dishes...
Crab cream croquet curry. Or sometimes pork cutlet curry. The best darn thing(s) ever. Consider adding ingredients and customize it too. I often add eggplant and mushrooms to my curry. They also ask how spicey you want the curry to be. IMO their curry is on the spicey side already. I usually get mild, as medium can actually have some heat. The curry then is served on a hot metal plate with a heap of rice, plus a side salad, which actually is a good portion salad with yummy dressing.
That and iced tea (I recommend with milk) and you'll be walking out happy and full. So full to a point where my husband and I usually don't have room for dessert! lol.
My friend suggested to meet at Blue Marlin the other day when she was in town. I was excited because I'm always eager to try new places. And I love japanese food to boot.
When I arrived, lo and behold, it was not new. I had actually eaten here a few years ago when a friend of mine from UCLA brought me three years ago. I recalled not enjoying the food very much, but I hope three years would change the place up a bit.
Nope, still didn't really like the food here. The om-rice was not impressive -- I've had better, and their salads are sort of "meh". I was hoping the salad would be healthy.. but sadly no, the "grilled chicken" is grilled flavorless chicken thigh with skin, and the oriental chicken salad was too salty.
I guess this is a good place to sit down and eat for UCLA college kids.. though I think it is fairly pricy for what you get. I wouldn't come back again not even by accident.
It is a Japanese fusion place. I usually avoid fusion but somehow we ended up going here when we were searching for a new idea along Sawtelle. The menu is a strange mix of Italian, Japanese and everything in between. I ordered a standard pork chop curry rice. The curry has a deep spice flavor compared with curry house but the pork chop was so DRY. My friend had the garlic noodles. Yeah it has a lot of garlic but that was about it.
Service was very slow too. Even the bill was a struggle. Also there was curry sauce spilled onto the serving base and it got on my shirt.
I use to frequent this joint with my college roommate all the frickin' time. this was #6 on our list of top 10 eats to visit before we moved away after college. haha, man we came here a lot for lunch, the lunch specials were awesome!
I dont recall the exact dishes but all in all this place was a nice affordable fast restaurant for busy, starving, over achieving students. lol*
okok, I vaguely recall croquette something, omelette over rice, and the risotto all being pretty frickin' remarkable.
I'm going to make it a point to visit this place a gain, and re-review****
I had to come back here to check out the sea urchin pasta that some ppl rave about here. I ordered the sea urchin with spinach pasta and my partner in crime got the teriyaki chicken omurice(special of the day). I have to be perfectly honest I didn't like either of the dishes. Now granted I don't eat sea urchin a lot, I'm guessing I just don't like sea urchin, but the whole dish was nothing spectacular.
The chicken teriyaki resembled that of chicken from Panda express, way too much teriyaki sauce.
I'm sticking with their seafood omurice from now on.
I would actually give this place 3.5 stars. I love that the Japanese food has a twist to its… Read more »
I literally just got home from dinner at the Blue Marlin. I have never written a review before, but tonight's experience was so awful I had to write about it.
The fiance and I ordered fried oyster appetizers, a regular om-rice dish with chicken, and a pork cutlet rice dish. All dishes come with salads which could be a bonus if they were tasty. My salad, however, was flooded in salad dressing, and it was more like lumpy dressing soup with a side of salad. Gross.
My first bite into the fried oyster shot out some hot oil which got on my hands and burned a little. It was slightly painful, but I wiped off the juices and continued eating in hopes that the meal would get better.
The biggest disappointment was my chicken om-rice dish which was an omelet the size of a football stuffed with about 5 bowls of rice. By the time I was halfway through w/my football omelet I realized that I still had not come across any chicken, at which point I had to start dissecting my football to fish for some meat. What was I able to find? THREE...yes THREE TINY pieces of chicken which were no bigger than the size of a quarter each.
The pork cutlet dish was all of 4 strips of meat stuffed with mushrooms and some green veggies with ponzu sauce. Not very impressive. The dish also consisted of a scoop of potato salad, another (gasp!) serving of salad, some steamed veggies, and a generous portion of white rice.
Man, times must be tough for this restaurant for them to be so stingy with their meat portions. I am not a fan of restaurants that have a 95 to 5 ratio of carbs to meat. I am also not one to complain or send dishes back, so I just wanted to get the check and be done with this place.
The best part though was when it was time to pay. We were told that they only take Visa or MasterCard when it clearly states on the menu that they take AmEx. Since our AmEx was rejected, we had to whip out the backup Visa card. Funny that the tray that my Visa and receipt came out on was an AmEx tray...
I came here with some friends for a quick lunch on sawtelle. he recommended the om-rice, so i got the chicken one. the little salad that came with the meal was tasty. i was impressed by the size of the om-rice, but after a couple bites i was disappointed to find almost no chicken. halfway through the om-rice i think i had a total of 2 pieces of chicken. what the heck?!
i ended up taking half of it home and ate it later for dinner. after eatting it again for dinner i was reminded at how disappointing the food is. i don't plan on coming back here.
Parking was not cool, but the restaurant was good. So a minus star for the parking issue.
My gf and I come here maybe once or twice a month. Overall, we think this place is a good place for a fast meal.
Happy Hour 3:00- 6:00 PM
Neighborhood: Hollywood
$ushi $pecial!
Neighborhood: Hollywood
Los Angeles, CA
Category: Japanese
Los Angeles, CA
Category: Japanese
Los Angeles, CA
Category: Asian Fusion
Los Angeles, CA
Category: Sushi Bars
Los Angeles, CA
Category: Japanese
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