Taste Fusion

It’s been 10 years since Miki Izumisawa opened 242 Café Fusion Sushi on North Coast Highway. Since then, she has become a mini-restaurant mogul or, to be more precise, a mogul of mini-restaurants; locations have opened in Manhattan Beach and, most recently, in San Clemente. The Laguna location is the smallest, with its 22 seats, but not by much. The other two are each called Sushi Gallery Miki, and all three feature art by Miki and her friends. As well as being one of the few female sushi chefs, she is also an artist, was an accomplished softball player in her native Japan and is a devotee of Tai-chi, Buddhism and New Age spirituality.

This tiny little bistro has virtually no room for décor other than a few works of art by the chef and a few wine bottles on some shelving, a few more sake bottles and a collection of random “stuff.” The open kitchen is not of the show kitchen ilk but rather a real working kitchen, now headed by sushi chef-surfer Takahiro Jitsumoto, a former gourmet French-Italian chef in Japan, while Miki cooks mostly in San Clemente.

The 10 seats at the sushi bar and the four tables are pretty much full every night with a local crowd of regulars who enjoy her inventive take on traditional Japanese sushi and sashimi. First-time visitors may find the menu a little difficult to puzzle out because of the many categories: appetizers, salads, soups, sashimi, fusion sashimi, nigiri, fusion nigiri, rolls, fusion rolls, ancient rolls, cooked and vegetables.

There are also nightly specials to further confuse you.

What may amuse you are the inventive, although not necessarily descriptive, names of the dishes. For instance, “Spicy Jewelry Roll,” “Hot Rock,” “Dessert Desert” or “Feather in the Sky.”

If you love sushi but your friends don’t, you can bring them along for the Canyon de Chelly, which is seared beef carpaccio on a vegetable roll. Non-meat eaters are well cared for here with a separate vegan menu. “Joshua Tree” combines deep-fried avocado, cucumber, macadamia nuts, spring mix and spicy grated radish with soy/vinegar in a rice roll. “Protein Mineral” is a seaweed tofu salad roll with soy, vinegar, sesame oil dressing.

Your waitress or the sushi chef will help you make a selection or you can choose the $22 sushi sampler with 14 pieces or the $55 omakase (chef’s choice) dinner.