On Friday night, Jes and I stopped in Santa Monica for some sushi with Brother and Joy.  We took them to U-Zen, an old favorite of ours when we lived in West LA.  We sat at the bar with Chef Masa and went omakase-style.  It turned out to be quite an adventure since we tasted a surprisingly tender clam, yummy salmon toro, a smooth yet chewy cuttlefish, fishy-tasting sardines, and a very “creamy” and almost not swallowable cod melt, which Chef called “monkey brains”.  And of course there was beer and lots of glass clinking with Chef.  Overall, it was a lot of fun catching up with the brother and having a really good sushi dinner.