Restaurant Review

Newport Beach Sushi bar is on a roll

By JULIE KIM

Daily Titan Opinion Editor

When I hear the word sushi, I usually think of a lot of dislikable adjectives. “Slimy” is one; “squishy” is another and “raw” always comes to mind.

But the food at California Beach Restaurant & Sushi Bar, located in Newport Beach is acutally delicious. Even better for a broke college student, it was moderately priced.

What did conjure up those same adjectives: slimy, squishy and raw was the strange debauchery that went on inside, with some sushi chefs drinking what looked like shots of Sake and female customers voluntarily going up to be groped and oogled.

But putting aside the possible legal and defi nite ethical issues for a moment, for anyone who could handle the heat – and I’m not just talking about the wasabi – the menu at California Beach Restaurant offered enough tasty appetizers, sushi, hand rolls and dinner entrees to satisfy most palates.

Guests recommended the spicy tuna roll ($6.50 for a cut or about eight pieces) and the popular California roll ($6 for a cut with the same amount of pieces). The restaurant also carried salmon skin, vegetable and shrimp asparagus rolls – to name but a few – and cucumber rolls ($3.50 for a cut or about four to fi ve pieces), which, to the dismay of my younger sister, ended up being just cucumber slices wrapped in seaweed and rice.

In addition, the shrimp and vegetable tempura dinner entrée ($11.50) was surprisingly fi lling and induced some lip smacking; it comes with miso soup, fresh salad with a light dressing, a side dish of cooked rice and shrimp pieces and various vegetables all fried in fl our batter.

At the risk of sounding like a food critic on “Iron Chef,” the crispiness of the seafood and vegetables was a nice contrast to the smooth miso and rice.

Those on a diet can keep it light with a simple mixed baby greens salad ($4.50) or the calamari salad ($10). Others with heartier appetites can enjoy Sake bombs ($6 per Sapporo beer and $6.25 per Sake bottle) and take advantage of the 50 percent-off “All-You-Can-Eat Specials,” which offer choices like beef tataki sashimi ($5) or Cajun ahi steak ($4.50).

In addition to the cuisine, the setting for the 20-year-old California Beach Restaurant & Sushi Bar was agreeable. The small building, nestled smack dab in the center of Newport Beach’s business district, has a welcoming feel, with unassuming American pop music blaring from the sound system and a 105-inch TV next to the bar.

But despite the good food and seemingly homely atmosphere, the rampant hedonism I witnessed my fi rst time at the restaurant – friends

have observed similar behavior on other occasions – left me unsettled and somewhat disturbed.

If the sushi chefs would like to continue to drink at work and continue to rub, what looked like, temporary tattoos onto apparently drunk customers, the establishment should re-organize itself so that children aren’t allowed in.

Daily Titan Asst.Production Editor

It was your typical Tuesday night and I had decided to try out my new facial mask. Applying an even coverage of the blue goop onto my face and waiting patiently for it to dry, I suddenly heard the doorbell ring.

I frowned, hoping that someone else would open the door.

But as the bell rang for the third time, I got up and headed for the front door. Placing my hands in front of my face and making a silent prayer that it was just a Jehovah’s Witness, I opened the door to fi nd my uncle. He took one look at me in my blue state, and said, “You look like a Smurf.”

“The Smurfs” was one of my favorite cartoons as a child. Where else in the world do over a hundred blue creatures that stand three apples tall, live in a village fi lled with kindness, happiness and joy exist?

Episodes consisted of the Smurf’s outsmarting Gargamel, the evil wizard and lone villain. by working as a team.

The show taught children that size didn’t matter in the big scheme of things if the smurfs were willing to work together they could defeat anyone.

Flashback Favorite ‘Smurfs’ brings smiles

By VIRGINIA TERZIAN

The Smurfs each had a skill and each had a responsibility to

For those who are not faint at heart: Enjoy. California Beach Restaurant & Sushi Bar is located at 3355 Via Lido Suite H at Newport Beach. For hours and information call (949) 675-0575 JULIE KIM/Daily Titan Opinion Editor

keep the village safe and running like a well-oiled machine. Some cooked, some cleaned, but they were all good creatures living near the woods, making the world a better Smurf place one Smurf-day at a Smurf time.

The characters were named based on what they could do: Brainy Smurf, the smart one; 543-year-old Papa Smurf, the leader and father of the 100- member bunch and a very powerful wizard who was always blowing things up by mistake; Smurfette, one of two girls in the land of blue boys and originally created by Gargamel as a ploy to destroy the happy Smurf village; Handy Smurf, who was good with tools; and Lazy Smurf, who wasn’t good at anything but sleeping.

What I remember most fondly about “The Smurfs” was the fact that practically every other word out of the characters’ mouths was “Smurf” or “Smurf-esque,” making for a very interesting dialogue and years of inside jokes between my fellow Smurf fans and myself. As we sit during long car rides, it’s common for at least one of us to ask, “Are we there yet, Papa Smurf?”

Despite some of the controversy that always follows the show like the fact that Smurfette was originally the only female Smurf in the show, it was popular for most of the 1980s and will always hold a special place in this Smurf’s heart.

Stale Yale lets

loose with Chloe

By VIRGINIA TERZIAN

Daily Titan Asst.Production Editor

I’ve always felt that there are three kinds of books in the world: ones that you read and think “I’m a better person for reading this,” ones you read and think “I want my money back for this piece of junk,” and then there are the best kinds of book out there like “Chloe Does Yale” By Natalie Krinsley, which will put you in a great mood.

This funny, fantastically sarcastic, and well-written book was not at all the kind of girlie book I was envisioning when a friend recommended it to me this summer. When I fi nally sat down and read the novel I couldn’t stop smiling, let alone put it down.

The story is a fi ctional fi rsthand account of the life of Chloe, a junior literature major at Yale University and Writer of “Sex in the (Elm) City,” a column in the Yale Daily News. Based on Krinsley’s true life story, the book shows life through the eyes of the young 20-something as she searches for Mr. Right, or at least Mr. Right-Now, while being a Blist celebrity at Yale as the author of the school’s sex column.

Chloe is a “half Israel Jew, half Wasp, New Yorker” as she describes herself searching for love and a good time. The story follows Chloe as she goes through a year of crazy ups and downs that any woman can relate to while searching for love and a good time.

The book is a combination of life through Chloe’s eyes as she deals with her family, heartbreak and her crazy friends. The book follows her parenting in such important events as the annual Exotic Erotic party - where students dress in next to nothing- to the ever popular Harvard versus Yale football game, a time-honored tradition of getting drunk in a parking lot to poker night. The book also includes Chloe’s editorials, which talk about everything from sex to shaving to falling in love.

But, it isn’t all about Chloe. Some of the best parts of this book occur when Chloe is talking with or about the secondary characters such as Bonnie, her goodhearted but at times close-minded roommate, friends like hot Rob, activist Adam and her friend Lisa, who is sleeping with not one, but two of her professors.

What makes this book so amusing is that it isn’t what you would expect.

While the book is not something I’d recommend to the Alpha-males out there, this is a book I can recommend to any woman with a little time to kill. As a friend of mine put it after I lent her the book “You may not be intellectually better for it, but you’ll be in a better mood.”