Blue Marlin

Aww...Sawtelle, where the hipsters come out and play. Colorful, young "cool" people killing time sipping their bobba and conversing about the latest whatever. This place has certainly been given a lot of attention lately. The restaurants leading the Japanese revolution, fusing it with such techniques as complex as French or as comforting as Italian.


I still dream about Orris, blending Japanese and Italian. So i thought i would try another place around there, Blue Marlin.

Italian and Japanese? Under one roof? Wow right?...Wrong.
I really had high hopes for this place, but too bad they will remain as just that.

I hate it when i am the one that suggests somewhere to go and it turns out to be crap, it makes me feel it's all my fault and makes me feel bad. When i first walked in, i thought for sure it was going to be good, having that abating aroma that we all know and love of garlic & olive oil.


Being the carbaholic that i am, i find it really pleasing when any restaurant brings fresh complimentary bread before any meal, it keeps me from going ravenous and makes me savor every bite of the main course even more. But for some reason the waitress did not bring any to our table. At first i did not notice, but then i saw that everyone else was enjoying them, everyone except us.

Looking at the meny, they had a bountiful amount of both Japanese and Italian plates. Me and my brother decided on the most interesting sounding plates in the menu. Our entrees came with a small salad and a bowl of soup. The salad was pretty good, although the fluorescent soy/citrusy orange dressing did need some getting used to, i managed to like it. The bowl of "soup" was just a bowl of Miso Soup, which i don't like so passed it along to my dad. Savoring the people next to us as they gorged their bread, i hoped the entree would be worth it.


After a couple of minutes, my Sauteed Jidori Chicken and Organic Vegetable-Salty finally arrived. Although they were extremely generous with an abundance of vegetables and a whole oval plate stacked with white rice, The chicken was overly dry, i mean i had to drown it in Ponzu sauce in order to make it somewhat acceptable. The selection of vegetables were nice though; broccoli, cauliflower and the root end of a carrot? Oh well, i didn't really care about that but did mind that on both my brother's dish of Stuffed Pork Cutlet with Demi-Glace Sauce and my dad's Vegetable Tomato Risotto there a slice of what seemed to be some sort of fried squash that was really good. Why am i always the victim of unlikely odd's such as these? The Stuffed Pork Cutlet was probably the best dish of the night(again my brother's). Very moist and not greasy oozing with Demi-Glace Sauce and Mushrooms It came with a little shredded cabbage salad and a scoop of potato salad that none of our plates had. I wonder why? I also noticed that they used the same type of rice that they used for the white rice in the Tomato Vegetable Risotto. This was very similar to mexican fried rice but with enough garlic to feel it the next day.


After this, i was really looking forward to the oddly interestingChocolate Caramel Pyramid with Vanilla Ice Cream that I've had my eye on it ever since we walked in, But of course, they were all out. So we settled with a typical Chocolate Souffle that was nothing out of the ordinary. I was going to take pictures, but didn't feel it was worth the walk to the car and get it. Maybe it's just me but oh well.


Blue Marlin
2121 Sawtelle Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90025