EMC Seafood & Raw Bar

Del Amo Fashion Center, 21536Hawthorne Blvd., Torrance; 310-370-0469, emcseafood.com

EMC has been around since 2013, yet it projects the confidence of a restaurant that’s been thriving for a lot longer than that. The kitchen is wide open at the EMC in Del Amo. Indeed, the restaurant, with its dramatic open-beamed ceiling, seems to be open to view in every direction.

But though there are people cooking in the kitchen, mostly what you’ll notice at EMC are the raw seafood cooks, who stand behind the glassed-in seafood counter, deftly cracking open oysters, and cracking space alien looking uni open to scoop out the tasty custard inside.

For those of us who believe

raw seafood is a gift from the heavens, EMC is a taste of paradise, complete with fancy cocktails like the Lavender Mule and the Twisted Manhattan — and lots of craft beers and sakes as well.

During a recent visit, there were six raw oysters, ranging from the familiar Kamamotos and Fanny Bays, to the less often encountered North Shore Golds, Miyagis, Willapa Soilels and Jades. And that was just the beginning. There were Peruvian scallops, and six fish for sashimi — all of them found on a $32 Sashimi Sampler, which is a real treat.

There also were four carpaccios, and a whole section of sushi rolls. Nothing wildly over the top, no Hawthorne Boulevard Traffic Jam Roll. But the

spicy tuna roll topped with slices of tuna is a clever creation. And really, you can’t go wrong with spicy tuna over crispy rice.

There’s more chilled seafood on the menu — wild jumbo white shrimp, wild red king crab, Maine lobster, wild Californian Dungeness crab, Prince Edward Island blue mussels.

And it’s possible you’ll never actually turn over the menu to the side dedicated to cooked seafood (mostly), and things that go well with cooked seafood. One of my faves is the house special of garlic noodles, tricked up with the addition of fat, juicy shrimp.