SHINSENGUMI

After the night flight from Hong Kong, I arrived in LAX on a Monday evening in late November and was met by my sister and my brother-in-law's younger brother.  I had promised them dinner and we went straight to Shinsengumi , a yakitori restaurant they had been raving about.  (Though not technically in laguna beach, this branch was the closest on our way home so that's where we went).

We got to the restaurant about 10:00 p.m. and surprisingly, the place was still pretty full and the next-door ramen place still had a queue of diners outside waiting to have noodles.  The place is small with a few tables near the entrance and a large counter that takes up most of the space where the grill is located and where several diners were still busy with their dinner.

 

We settled into a booth right by the entrance and were given the robata list where we could pencil in our orders directly.  Initially, we just ordered one stick each thinking that each order had two or three skewers but when the food arrived and it was just one skewer per order, we ordered a second round of yakitori.  The food came quickly, hot off the grill.  We had chicken skin, chicken thighs with green onion both in salt and with special house sauce, chicken wings, quail eggs, Washu beef, pork belly, and chicken meatballs.  We also ordered a small tuna sashimi, tofu agedashi and fried octopus to share with hot green tea.  The yakitori was flavorful and as it was after 10:00 p.m., it was Yakitori happy hour so most of the skewers were priced at $1.50 each instead of the usual $2.00 to $3.50 making our dinner for three very affordable.  It was a really good meal to welcome my arrival in the States.

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Shinsengumi Robata and Yakitori
18315 Brookhurst Street, #1
(Promenade Shopping Center)
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
Telephone: +1 (714) 962-8952
*Open for lunch Mondays to Fridays, 11:30 to 2:00 p.m. (Ramen only)
*Open for dinner daily from 6:00 to 11:30 p.m. 


*Other branches in Gardena, Monterey Park and Rosemead and also in Tokyo.