Grand Opening Alert!

Downtown Los Angeles has a new modern Japanese bento restaurant that is mixing Southern California ingredients with both traditional and nontraditional preparations. Located across from the former LA Times building at 1102 Lawrence Street, the newly opened Guzzu Bento-Ya comes from brothers Anthony and Len Hayashi, along with managing partner David Chen, and will officially open for service on August 24.

I was on hand to get the first preview behind the scenes so make s sure to check out my article on Eater here for more.

Although some of the dishes will change depending on what’s in season, the most popular bentos so far have been the Jidori chicken karaage and the kurobuta miso tonkatsu. The signature chicken karaage bento is made with ginger and garlic-marinated fried Jidori chicken thigh served with Anthony’s housemade shichimi togarashi spice blend, which he makes with 14 spices instead of the usual seven.

All of the bentos except for the vegetarian curry are topped with a jammy ajitsuke tamago, or Japanese soft-boiled egg. Since it is extremely difficult to get real saikyo miso in the U.S., Anthony is making his own version in-house to cure the egg yolks. The sweet and umami-rich flavors of the miso make for an amazing candied egg yolk that’s thick, sticky, and perfect for rice.

Guzzu Bento-Ya is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. at 1102 Lawrence Street, and plans to expand to longer hours soon.