Temakira–the hip sushi hand roll joint that moved into the former location of Avanti Cafe in Costa Mesa in the fall of last year–is expanding. The OC Mix location is just about ready to open and now they've revealed they're also opening one at University Center across from UC Irvine.
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If you've not been to the original in Costa Mesa, here's a snippet from a review I wrote earlier this year:
If Temakira fits into a category, it's the modern kind of sushi purveyor that eschews stuffiness and tradition for accessibility and convenience. Its closest kin is Fountain Valley's Samurai Burrito, but it's classier than that–it's less Instagram, more Pinterest. If Samurai Burrito's customers seem as if they just got out of high school, Temakira's clients look as though they're working on their graduate degrees.
At Temakira, you can get a beer poured from a tap and sake, too–something you can't at Samurai Burrito. And there's the main difference: the product itself. Where Samurai Burrito takes sushi ingredients and constructs gigantic cylinders that are neither burritos nor futomakis, Temakira's hand rolls hew close to what temakis traditionally are: cornucopias filled with all manner of fish and veggies.
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Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.