Sugarfish arrived with an out-of-town pedigree. Its branches around Los Angeles have an ardent following, and one of the chain’s founders, Kazunori Nozawa, was among the first sushi chefs to bring to that city a rigorously autocratic style. Specializing in omakase, he was known to yell at those foolish enough to stir wasabi into their soy sauce.

Nobody yelled at me at Sugarfish, but the staff didn’t seem all that eager to feed me, either. I made my first assault on the host stand just after 6:30 one weeknight. (The place doesn’t do reservations.) I was alone and willing to wait even if it took until closing time — 11 that night. What an optimist I was in those days. “We’re not taking any more names tonight,” a host announced.

Later, I learned to stage my raids between 2 and 4 in the afternoon, not hours when I typically crave raw fish. One lucky day, I was in within 30 minutes and out before sunset.

One can order sushi by the piece, but the servers and the printed menu heavily push the three “Trust Me” meals. This is a variant on omakase, which roughly means “I trust the chef,” but a Trust Me is not an omakase meal. It is, essentially, a set menu served in waves. All three start with chilled edamame and slices of tuna in ponzu, move on to several small courses of nigiri and end with a hand roll or two. The simplest, Trust Me Lite, is $27 and includes four pieces of nigiri; the most expensive is the Nozawa Trust Me, with 12 pieces of sushi and two hand rolls at a price of $51.