sea urchin in santa barbara

Hi, I'm going to be in Santa Barbara for a few days and I've heard the best sea urchin comes from there. Does anybody know a good restaurant to get it?

You don't have to go to Santa Barbara to get the Uni.

All the best sushi bars in LA get there Uni from Santa Barbara.

I heard from a person in Ventura that you can get Uni directly in Oxnard. You might want to try these two places.

Tradewind Seafood
Mack Demachi
1505 Mountain View Ave Oxnard, CA 93030
USA
1-805-483-8555 FAX [phone]


PMPC
Ryosuke Matsui
398 Kalorama St. Ventura, CA 93001
USA
[phone]

First, I would repost this on the California Board so local Santa Barbarians can offer help.

Second, if you are willing to go to the Port Hueneme area (which is occasionally discussed on this
board), seek out:

Sushi Hanada
[phone]
457 W Channel Islands Blvd
Port Hueneme, CA 93041

A little gem in a non-descript ultra-suburbia TGIF-strip mall. Bar seating is omakase only. Call ahead
to see if they have local uni (I believe harvesting season ended at the beginning of April)

I'm pretty sure that Quality seafood serves live uni. They're in Redondo Beach, but I think the urchin come from up the coast.

QS definately has live Uni in the saltwater tank, but not always. If your sole purpose in going there is for live Uni, I'd call ahead first to confirm. But when they do, it's wonderful. $3.99 a pound, IIRC.