Where to try the best yakitori in Los Angeles

The room is constantly humming at Torihei, the chief yakitori and oden specialist in Torrance. Guests rotate through the dining room at all hours, hoisting pitchers of beer and tapping call buttons on their tables to place more orders for hearts, tails, thighs, gizzards, cartilage, skin, wings and liver. It’s hard to see the grill even at the bar seats due to the high counter and the array of sake bottles on display, but the smoke, always rising due to the onslaught of orders, plumes behind a glass panel. Torihei’s substantial yaki selection is matched by its menu of fried goods (gingko nuts, gizzards, squid legs and more); oden, or stew, offerings; rice dishes; and sides like marinated quail eggs, chilled chicken skin with ponzu, and raw octopus with wasabi.

But the grilled skewers are central to Torihei, each a cosmos unto itself. There are smoky tomatoes in garlic sauce, incredibly soft hearts with fresh lemon and a light chew to them, tender chicken breasts under squiggles of ume paste and slivers of shiso, and excellent pork-belly-wrapped tomatoes buried in bonito flakes. When it comes to yakitori the house specialty, however, is the tsukune, available three ways. The light-as-air meatballs are made with a secret blend of chicken meat, its cartilage, onion and herbs for pops of texture and flavor, and its outer sphere sports edges grilled golden brown. Three come stacked on a skewer and can be enjoyed simply with tare, under a blanket of melted cheese, or alongside a small ramekin of poached egg for a richer dunk and coating. Why choose when you can order them all?