Do you eat at real Sushi restaurants or phony ones?

[Tom Winters]

For me a "real" sushi restaurant would be a tiny hole-in-the-wall in Japan where itamae-san selects sushi for me based on what I've liked before, even if I've only had a single order up to then. It's usually very below-the-radar and offers nothing but sushi and sashimi and thus has no tables at all. Typically, there would be no ingredients on display in "Neta Cases." It is likely to offer unusual or distinctive sushi such as odori-ebi, basashi, or fugu.

I started easting sushi in a little place like that in Sasebo, Japan. The shipyard there did such a good job on our repairs that I got a lot of time off, and I didn't want to start drinking too early, so I wandered into one of these little places.
No one there spoke any English - Sasebo was still below the US port radar, and at that time, I spoke no Japanese. So they just brought out stuff along with sake, which was also a novelty for me. When I was full, they wrote a number down on a little piece of paper, I paid and left. They were most cool there - I don't think they even got to see too many gaijin much less deal with one as a customer, but it was pretty good - plus I didn't have an empty stomach when I hit the bars.
The Navy ultimately wound up forward basing ships there - that would have been a pretty good homeport.

 

[dlndavid]

Did your last sushi bar have a fully trained and qualified head sushi chef?
yes
When you entered the establishment does the sushi chef recognize you immediately?
yes
Do you eat at a table, or do you eat at the bar where you can see the food being prepared?
at the bar to watch and talk to the chef
Have you tried raw urchin combined with rice in a proper seaweed wrap?
I like my uni plain, no rice, seaweed, just soy sauce with wasabi.

I don’t care about what sushi I get because I drown it out with beer.

I don't usually have beer with shashimi (gave up on sushi, too much rice), I prefer Saki or Soju.

And quail egg is served on Tobiko or Ikura (flying fish roe, tiny and Salmon roe, big).

My favorite, Murugai, (Long Neck Clam).

Unagi (eel) is dessert.

Going right now, it's my wife's birthday.

 

[bell47]

The best "sushi" to me is raw scallops right out of the water in Maine, on the dive boat! Yes they recognized me there, I guess I was qualified to shuck scallops. They DO go great with cold beer on the boat ride home! NO RICE, NO CHOPSTICK, NO SOYSAUCE, NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!

 

[Rick Inman]

yuck

That from a guy who's avatar is a close-up of an eye! eyebrow

"The pleasant experience of eating something you have never had before, will extend your life by 75 days."

Japanese proverb.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

I'm a huge fan of sushi (but certainly not an expert), and I've had the pleasure of finding some excellent places as well as eaten in some places that were not so good.

The best places I recall were in Okinawa and Japan when I was stationed there, but I've had great sushi in Boulder, Colorado and Washington DC area also...there can be fine sushi shops in unlikely places.

(Gotta admit, tho', I'm with mstevens - I think properly prepared urchin tastes like warm beagle vomit! )

I'm probably committing all sorts of sushi red-neckery, but about ten years ago I took a class, bought some knives and the fixin's, and started making my own. I sucked at first, but I got better over time. Now some of my favorite sushi are the crab, salmon, and lingcod rolls I make myself! Can't complain about the freshness, as I snabbed the ingredients myself out of Puget Sound (well, not the salmon - got that at the docks). They won't win prizes, but they're tasty. Nuke a little sake and it can make a satisfying evening repast Bon Appetit!

 

[RonFrank]

I can not really answer you poll as the questions are non mutually exclusive.

I eat shushi weekly generally at the same place, and questions 1 through 4 all apply, but maybe not at a given meal.

As far as a decade of training goes, I'm really not sure why that is necessary? If it takes two years to learn to prepare rice, IMO maybe the chef is a rather slow learner. The shusi is more about where the restraunt get's it's fish. The place I go, and most I know, get their fish fresh daily. I could certainly cut it up with no training, although filleting a fish is a skill unless one likes bones in their fish.

Making the rice for shusi is likely the hardest part, but hardly something one can not learn in a short amount of time. If the fish is sushi grade fresh, I could eat it RAW and just use a hunting knife to carve out huge hunks! The chef at Sonoda's where I generally eat said he could teach me to make shusi in an afternoon, in fact he offered.

As for Fugu, you don't have to go to a back room in NYC, or pay thousands of dollars to eat it. Fugu does take a licensed sushi chef to prepare. It can be found in NYC, LA, and SanFran in the US that I'm aware of. The dinner generlly runs in the $150-$200 range, but includes more than just a few pieces of Fugu.

As for getting just a touch of poison in the meat, that is not necessay, and in fact lethal. If the chef cuts into the poison sac of the most deadly of Fugu, anything that even touches that knife is going to kill you instantly. The Fugu meat has just a hint of the poison in the flesh, and that gives a very mild intoxicating effect.

In Japan Fugu is very popular, and it also kills a lot of people every year. HERE is an article on Fugu.

In any event, shusi kills less people than Salmonella in the States. In Denver years back several kids died eating Jack in the Box Hambugers. I've never read of anyone dying after eating Shushi in Denver regardless of where it was served.

Hmmmm, sushi! :bfish:

 

[Mr.X]

Hello Folks,

I certainly appreciate the feedback. It's been very, very interesting.

We have folks eating scallops and ling out of the water. We have had folks eating sushi in Japan, Hawaii, Colorado etc.

At this point qualification isn't so much an issue as is overall expertise and personality. Setting matters less if freshness and taste are #1. Sushi chef protocol seems to be mostly missing.

On that note - sushi making had a touch of elitism attached to it at one point. Hence, the long apprenticeships and exclusivity. Some episodes of Iron Chef Japan illustrate that perspective.

Many thanks for all your feedback. Cheers. X

 

[El Orans]

Let's have more sushi!

Fugu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu

 

[Zeeman]

Mmmmmmmmm... sushi - and sashimi! I'm very lucky here in Coogee, we have about 5 good sushi places within about 5 minutes drive (shame about parking)

Z...

 

[MSilvia]

1. Did your last sushi bar have a fully trained and qualified head sushi chef?
Yes.

2. When you entered the establishment does the sushi chef recognize you immediately (doesn’t matter how far away or how busy they are) and said "irashaimase" - welcome?
Yes... it's a large restaurant, and the chef cannot see all the patrons enter (and may never see some, such as the ones in private booths on the second floor), but anyone sitting at the bar gets a personal welcome from the chef.

3. Do you eat at a table, or do you eat at the bar where you can see the food being prepared?
Private booth with large parties, but I always sit at the bar when with 3 or fewer.

4. Have you tried raw urchin combined with rice in a proper seaweed wrap?
Yes, and now consider it to be among my least favorite foods. My pallate hasn't aquired a taste for the flavor or texture of uni, and probably never will.

5. I don’t care about what sushi I get because I drown it out with beer.
I'm sorry to hear that.