~ Meals and Music ~: Good friends and good food at Musha

Okay I decided to stop being lazy and post about our latest culinary adventure. This past Saturday, Andrew and I partook in a triple date with friends I hadn't seen in a long time due to distance, grad school, etc. Anyways, the place for this triple date was at a quaint little Japanese restaurant in Santa Monica called Musha.

I am definitely one to do my research so I went on Yelp prior to the dinner and mentally noted the 3 most raved dishes from Yelpers: brown rice risotto, mackarel and stone grilled beef.

When we arrived at the restaurant at 6pm, we were told that there was another reservation at 7:30pm so we'd only have an hour or so to eat. Good thing is that we were served quickly with every drink and dish. We didn't mind too much since we already had plans after dinner regardless. It is a pretty small establishment, so I wouldn't say it's ideal for parties above 6. But definitely an intimate and quaint setting for smaller groups.

Musha is an Izakaya type restaurant, meaning they specialize in Japanese tapas or appetizers. The food is best shared with amongst good company. Here's a list of dishes we ordered (I may be missing some since I failed to take pictures):

Tofu salad

Soybean chicken

Tuna tartare with ricecakes

Brown rice risotto

Mackarel

Stone grilled beef

MFC (Musha Fried Chicken)

Dynamite scallops

Octopus omellette (similar to Okonomiyaki)

The tuna tartare, brown rice risotto, and the mackarel were the items that stood out the most to me. The tuna tartare was served with 4 pieces of asian rice cakes (the dry crunchy type). The texture of the tartare was perfectly spreadable on the rice cakes and they complemented each other very well. As for the brown rice risotto, it wasn't as fabulous as I thought it would be, but interesting because it was creamy, cheesy, and chewy because of the brown rice. My favorite was definitely the mackarel - it was seared right at our table with a blowtorch, which charred the exterior of the fish, but left the middle slightly raw. I love raw fish so I was very happy with the half cooked/half raw mackarel. I usually don't like very fishy tastes, but the mackarel was seasoned just right.

I absentmindedly forgot to take pictures (again!) so I leave you with food photos taken from Yelp. If you're ever in the West Los Angeles/Santa Monica area, check Musha out!