Inside Sei-Ko-En, a small strip mall restaurant on Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance, smoke rises from the small grills. Japanese and English conversations can be heard over the sizzle of meat cooking. Just like at yakiniku joints around Japan, customers at Sei-Ko-En grill their own meat, which is accompanied by plates of kimchi and steaming bowls of yukgaejang (a spicy Korean soup with shredded beef). Yakiniku has its roots in Korean barbecue and this style of grilling meat was introduced to Japan by Korean immigrants, so it’s very common to see traditional Korean dishes served at yakiniku restaurants as well.
At Sei-Ko-En, small, rectangular metal grills are built into the tables, just large enough to grill two or three slices of meat at one time. Various beef cuts, pork, and seafood are offered a la carte during dinner, brought to the table raw for the customers to cook on the grill. When the meat is ready, it’s typically enjoyed alongside rice, kimchi, and side vegetable dishes. In addition to the meat and seafood, the restaurant also offers beef sashimi and Korean soups like yukgaejang or spicy tofu soup.
Yakiniku has evolved from its Korean barbecue roots to take on the preferences of Japanese diners. For yakiniku, the meat is typically sliced more thinly compared to Korean barbecue, so it’s faster to cook and becomes more caramelized on the sides. While at Korean barbecue spots, especially in L.A., galbi (short rib) reigns supreme, Japanese diners prefer cuts like harami (skirt steak) and beef tongue. The dipping sauces are also a little different: yakiniku dipping sauces are influenced by Japanese cuisine and tend to be lighter in flavor, made with a mix of soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. The beef tongue is simply served with salt and lemon juice for dipping.
One of the few yakiniku restaurants in the Los Angeles area, Sei-Ko-En has been serving the Torrance area for over 40 years. Torrance, located in L.A. county’s South Bay, is known for its high number of Japanese residents – and hence Japanese restaurants, thanks to the presence of Japanese corporations that have their U.S. headquarters there, including Toyota (though they relocated to Texas in 2017), Honda, and others. Toyota initially opened up its Torrance campus in 1982, bringing many Japanese workers to move to the area. That same year, Sei-Ko-En also opened its humble space.
The current owner, Hayato Yanagisawa, took over at the end of 2021, but he’s committed to keeping Sei-Ko-En the way it was when he fell in love with the restaurant. Yanagisawa-san started going to Sei-Ko-En in 2018 when he moved to Torrance from Los Angeles. He quickly became a regular, drawn back time and again by the high-quality meat and the owner’s homemade sauces and seasonings.
In 2021, the original owner – who Yanagisawa remembers as Yan-san or, as many customers called her, Mama-san – was getting older and decided to retire. “I heard that there were some people who are interested in buying the restaurant but they just wanted to buy the space to start a new Korean barbecue restaurant,” Yaganisawa explained. “I wanted to carry the tradition and legacy of the original Sei-Ko-En as a Japanese barbecue restaurant,” Yaganisawa explained. He was about to quit his previous job at that time anyway, so he asked his father-in-law, another longtime regular who knew Mama-san, if she’d be interested in selling the restaurant to Yaganisawa.
Mama-san agreed, but because she had been running Sei-Ko-En mostly by herself for such a long time, it took some time to hand over all the recipes for her homemade specialties. “She didn’t have any measurements…she just knew what to do. So at first, I had to be right next to her the whole time to see how she makes everything and write down the recipe,” says Yanagisawa, “She didn’t know how to teach me either, so I just had to steal all the techniques that she was doing and write down the measurements. The kimchi, especially, took a while to get the ideal flavor that we wanted.”
His efforts paid off. These days, most things remain the same as they always were at Sei-Ko-En. The restaurant was known locally as an inexpensive Japanese barbecue restaurant, and Yanagisawa was conscious about not raising its prices. Instead, he looked for ways to reduce the restaurant’s food waste in order to keep his overall cost low. He also started promoting Sei-Ko-En on social media to reach new customers, an effort that he says has bumped the percentage of non-Japanese diners up from 10-20 percent to around 40 percent.
The interior of Sei-Ko-En also remains the same. Two small yakiniku grills are built into each of the booths, and the decor is minimal – just copies of the drink menu and advertisements for sake and beer are posted on the wall (the restaurant offers great prices for Japanese drinks like sake and chu-hais – highballs made with shochu and soda).
“We don’t want to change any of the interior,” says Yanagisawa, “even though it might not look modern…this is what the actual Japanese, authentic yakiniku restaurants looked like, especially in the nineties. It’s that kind of atmosphere…where people gather, have a great time with drinks, talk loud, laugh loud with all the smoke inside the restaurant….that’s the vibe that we want to keep.”
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Published on July 22, 2025
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