If you haven’t had the chance to attend a Sushi Nikkei anniversary—like the one that just happened at their Belmont Shore location late last year or the one the year before that—it is something I have strongly encouraged folks to do so.
While the regular menu at Sushi Nikkei is available in its entirety, they offer a special anniversary menu that proudly focuses on traditional Peruvian plates. In other words, with each anniversary menu, owners Chef Eduardo Chang Ogata and Daiwa favored dishes that don’t fit Sushi Nikkei’s normal operating menu but are definitively Peruvian.
And their upcoming third anniversary for their OG Bixby Knolls location is no exception, going down on Tuesday, Jan. 28 from 5PM to 9PM.
The traditional Peruvian fare Sushi Nikkei anniversaries of the past have brought before.
In 2023, Chef Eduardo offered a beautiful take on causa—the mashed, served chilled potato dish that often defines Peruvian appetizers—with chunks of tuna lined between a snakey line of bright yellow, chilled mashed potatoes. There were Peruvian gyozas, a nod to Eduardo’s Japanese and Peruvian heritage, filled with shrimp and a chupe sauce that was a nod to the famed chupe de camarones chowder that is an essential part of Peruvian cuisine. Whole prawns—encouraging customers to rip the heads off and suck them for what any seafood lover knows is the “good stuff”—lathered in Japanese butter with bread on the side for dipping.
2024 in Belmont Shore? There were those taters better for frying. Perfectly browned, addictingly crispy potatoes sat atop a traditional ocopa sauce, a bright green concoction that uses the minty-meets-tarragon-meets-citrus power of the Andean herb huacatay. Next to it? A perfectly braised’n’charred tenatacle of octopus. There was tuna machame, a play on tiradito muchame. Jalea mixta, an array of fried goods…
It was beautifully traditional—though the Nikkei side of Eduardo’s heritage never felt outright dismissed.
Daiwa Wong and Chef Eduardo Chang Ogata celebrating the first anniversary of their Belmont Shore location in December of 2023. Photos by Brian Addison.
What to expect at this year’s anniversary in Bixby Knolls, their original location.
The upcoming menu at the Bixby Knolls location of Sushi Nikkei will be offering:
- Big oysters served aguachile-style
- Tiradito fish and clams with rocoto tiger milk, avocado, and cilantro
- Causa shrimp cocktail with mashed potato, avocado, tomato, and golf sauce, a Peruvian mayo-meets-herbs-and-tomatoes sauce.
- Lobster bake roll with spicy tuna and cucumber in soy paper and topped with baked lobster.
- Spring roll gone lomo saltado, served with Peru’s famed cheese-based huancaina sauce.
- And lastly, a limited amoutn of Peruvian choco cake.
A reminder of why Sushi Nikkei is an important cog in the Long Beach food scene.
When it comes to Sushi Nikkei, there still—after years of a presence—remains confusion over what, precisely, “Peruvian sushi” means. And to begin, it must be emphasized that this is not fusion food but a direct product of Japanese culture flourishing in Peru.
“Sushi is as Peruvian as it is Japanese,” Daiwa told me when we first met. “They are intertwined with the spirit of the Nikkei.”
“Nikkei” in Japanese means those of Japanese descendants, the literal span of the Japanese diaspora worldwide—and for a culture so subsumed in its own identity, with strong ties to family and geography, those outside of the island proper have had to doubly fight to maintain their sense of Japanese-ness while also assimilating to their new homes.
The Nikkei of Perú are no exception—and through ups and downs, turmoil and struggle across a century-plus of existence in Peru, they’ve become an essential aspect of Peruvian culture itself. Chef Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura’s Maido restaurant in Lima—one of the leading pillars of Nikkei cuisine—jumped one spot further up to #5 on the 2024 World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. (And on that very list, multiple other entries from Perú.)
To have such representation in Long Beach in a place that has two locations is not just an honor but something worthy of highlight. And definitively something worth supporting.
Sushi Nikkei’s Bixby Knolls location is located 3819 Atlantic Ave. For reservations, click here.
