Most people come to Sawtelle to eat, and that is increasingly visible on the street. Orris doesn't take reservations, so it's common to see five to 10 people lined up on the patio, but you don't see anyone frowning.
"This is my favorite type of food," he adds. "You have Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese food all in a three-block stretch. It's incredible. And I think the food is getting better as it gets more upscale, definitely."
"Yeah, it used to be a place to go and eat good food on a budget, and you still can, but it's changing a little," says Amanda Burdin, one of Gottlieb's friends.
The newest reinvention of renowned chef Hideo Yamashiro, who cooked at Chinois and for the last 18 years has owned Shiro in South Pasadena, Orris is French-Japanese fusion served as \o7izakaya\f7, on tiny plates at $6 to $12 a pop. The atmosphere is bar-like, with 20 wines available by the glass and the crowd of older foodies giving way to the young Japanese hipsters as the hour gets later.
"We're very different from all of the other traditional Japanese restaurants along this street," says Tatia Oshidari, Orris' manager. "I've been living in this area for about 15 years, so I've definitely seen the change; it's becoming a little restaurant row. So we felt the time was right for something that's a little bit different. We get about 30% return customers almost every night."
THE area already had some top-end restaurants, including Sushi Sasabune, which has now moved to Brentwood. It also had a history of fine -- but not expensive -- French-Japanese dining, established by the reliable cooking of chef Kenji Minamada at Sawtelle Kitchen, and in some of the French dishes across the street at 2117, a \o7youshoku \f7restaurant, meaning Japanese with Western influences. Like those well-patronized establishments, many of the regular customers at Orris are white.
"I wouldn't say our primary customer is Japanese at all," Oshidari says. "We do get some, and I would say they were younger, maybe in their 20s to 30s. But we get older people that live in the Palisades, and Santa Monica, and Brentwood, that have known Shiro for a while."
Next door at Chabuya, it's a different story. In Japan, Chabuya is one of the most respected names in ramen. This is its first restaurant in the U.S., and the Japanese food purists in the area, who sometimes eschew the popular Asahi Ramen and Kinchans Ramen as something less than the real thing, view Chabuya with reverence. Still, it represents new Japan, and its clientele are more likely to be young Japanese hipsters.
