Nobu Malibu

September posts have been sporadic at best but hopefully now that The Dish's Dish HQ relocation process is near completion, things will get back to normal and postings will return to onceish a day.
To ring things in at our new Malibu office, we decided to toast at Nobu Malibu. Sure it's an older restaurant and the menu's exactly the same regardless of whether you're in Milan, NYC, Vegas, etc but the quality remains superbe. Plus, Taylor had never been (the horror!!).
Despite Nobu being Nobu, Malibu's still Malibu, hence the restaurant's strip mall location. Granted, there's also a Kitson is the Malibu mall not to mention an Oliver Peoples and three highend beauty product stores.
We saddled up at a corner table and ordered a few classics. First up was the yellowtail with jalepeño. Supple pieces of fish basked in the almost smoky-citrusy sauce. A tiny slice of jalepeño crowned each sliver. Six perfect bites were gobbled up rapidly. Taylor loved it!
Then came my favorite - the sashimi salad. The dressing is key here. It's a combination of mirin, minced onions, soy sauce and a few other Asian specialties. A mountain of greens is trellaced by a rim of seared tuna, bathing in the dressing. The whole thing is topped with a flower. It's been my most-craved dish since my first Nobu experience in '02. I've subsequently learned to make the dress as means of survival and even, for a time, was able to enjoy the dish at Tab Tos, a now defunct East Village restaurant started by a defected Nobu chef.
Thereafter, we ordered a few rolls - house special and shrimp tempura. The special was a great rendition on the rainbow roll and the shrimp tempura included a nice bite of asparagus. Excellent touch. We ordered a few sushi, too - tuna and salmon - just for a little treat. The fish was the freshest we'd had in a while. Ahhhh living by the Ocean.
We walked out to the parking lot sated and happy. Nobu Malibu was a perfect way to enjoy our first night in town.