Kihon Verified listing

Erwin Angeles didn’t come to America to write code—he came to open a restaurant.

But like so many immigrants chasing security first, he landed in the world that landed him a paycheck: software engineering. It paid the bills and took him all the way to director of technology at CBS Entertainment. Still, that itch to run a kitchen never went away. “That’s what I had been wanting to do since I came to America,” Angeles said. “I just got stuck in software because it was easy to get into.”

So in 2008, he walked away from the corporate ladder and jumped headfirst into the thing that called to him most: food. He trained under the legendary Chef Katsuya Uechi of Katsu-Ya fame—a crash course in sushi that turned into five years of honing his craft under one of LA’s most respected names in Japanese cuisine.

By 2014, Angeles was ready. He saw a for-sale sign at Naples Sushi on 2nd Street in Long Beach and took the leap, rebranding the space as Kihon—the Japanese word for “basics” or “fundamentals.” It wasn’t just a name; it was a philosophy. “That’s our bottom-line motto here—keep the basic knowledge of Japanese cooking,” he said.

Since then, Kihon has quietly held it down in Belmont Shore, serving up sushi rolls, sashimi, ramen, and small plates that are rooted in technique, but never stuck in tradition.