Though the musical acts packed their bags and left Chicago last weekend, Lollapalooza is still in the air—in the form of new BYOB sushi restaurants. Rollapalooza just opened in Boystown, further proving that sushi makes for some pretty lame puns. Despite the allusion, the music here isn't so hot according to one Yelper: "Nobody at 10PM on a Friday night wants to hear 'You Light Up My Life' and a Lionel Richie medley."
Experience the fast paced world of running a sushi bar by playing Sushi Go Round. Click on ingredients to make specific rolls (doing it incorrectly results in something that looks like a pile of poop), send the sushi out to your customers before they get angry, and buy more ingredients when supplies are running low. It's not realistic at all, but it's a fun way to kill time. [via Metafilter]
"I smell something fishy in here. Oh. Never mind. It's me." —Sushi-Head Playmobil Dude
Customized Playmobil figures with wacky sushi heads. Fun!
Amy and Jonny of We Are Never Full are damn good at making sushi—these salmon skin rolls with cucumber and sweet brown sauce are mouthwateringly beautiful. Check out the full post for more sushi porn, plus a recipe for the sweet omelette roll called tamago yaki.
When you sit at the sushi bar chances are you'll end up chatting with your sushi chef. This interaction is one benefit of sitting close to the action—you can easily express your preferences, find out what's fresh, and develop a nice rapport. If you're not one for small talk, though, you may like the new standing sushi bar Ushio, located at Shinagawa Station in Tokyo, where you can order sushi without uttering a single syllable.
How it works: Rows of tokens—each labeled with a kind of fish or beverage and marked with its price—are neatly stacked on the counter. Want some freshwater eel and tuna? Grab the anago and maguro coins and toss 'em in your personal tray. The sushi chef will take a look at the coins in your tray and wordlessly serve you your food.
Don't read Japanese? Not an issue: The English translation is also written on each token. It may not be the most traditional sushi bar experience, but it's certainly tourist-friendly and won't have you fumbling every few minutes for your English-Japanese dictionary. [via Watashi to Tokyo]
I don't know what the lyrics of this Japanese song mean, but watching a bunch of people prance around in super happy sushi costumes is captivating enough on its own. Whether or not watching this video will increase sushi consumption is yet to be determined.
Watch the video, after the jump.
1958 was a big year. A fourteen-year old Bobby Fischer won the U.S. Chess championships, NASA was created and the very first sushi conveyor belt scooted around a restaurant! It all started in April of 1958 when a mobile stream of plates carrying tuna belly fat and salmon first rotated inside Mawaru Genroku Sushi restaurant in Osaka, Japan. Creator Yoshiaki Shiraishi called it "kuru kuru sushi," which adorably translates to "sushi-go-around" in Japanese, and eventually decided that 8 centimeters per second was the ideal speed—slow enough for safe arrivals, but also fast enough to keep up with voracious appetites.
Shiraishi also invented a robotic sushi model, where robots carry the raw fish, but it didn't "go around" with customers as well. He was clearly not a big fan of human waiters. [via YeinJee]
Related
Sushi Go-Round
The commercial fishing industry hasn't been doing so hot in recent years. Fish like cod and king salmon are decreasing dramatically or disappearing completely due to overfishing to meet global demands. The effects of global warming are starting to become evident as well, and let's not forget the hubbub raised earlier this year over the high level of mercury in certain species like tuna or swordfish.
Enter the Kona Kampachi, a "designer yellowtail" bred in Kona, Hawaii. Fortune Magazine goes so far as to even dub it "the wonder fish":
It's not genetically engineered in any way, just well bred. It's sashimi-grade and sustainably farmed without hormones or prophylactic antibiotics. It's richer in omega-3 than just about anything else in the ocean and has no detectable mercury. It melts on your tongue, holds up on the grill, and is so rich in oils that it'll fry in a pan without butter.
Unlike most fish farms, the Kona Kampachi are bred "offshore"—in deeper waters, farther away from land—limiting their exposure to pollution to decrease the potential of contracting disease or contamination. Since they're not genetically modified, any fish that escape also won't impact the native population.
Already popular in the culinary world, it's been seen on the menus of restaurants from San Francisco, Denver and New York. As it is a premium product, it's a bit pricey—almost $20 for a pound—but the benefits might outweigh the costs.
Looking into a crystal ball, Good magazine forecasts which foods will be the next sweeping trends in a post-sushi era. With more restaurants serving exclusively sweets, New York's first dessert bar ChikaLicious might have to watch out. Bibimbap is another trend to watch for, but L.A. Weekly's Jonathan Gold already called that Korean pile of bean sprouts, egg, and meat an emerging all-star back in 2004. Itsy-bitsy fish like sardines and anchovies are also getting bigger, which should make both obesity-haters and the sustainable fishermen happy. And forget pomegranate (so 2007)—mangosteen is all the semi-exotic fruit rage, which means it'll probably start popping up in products galore. This XanGo juice, already a hit with Oprah, is just the beginning of a mangosteen-crazed world.
Trevor Corson tells Lexus Magazine why toro, the bellyfat of bluefin tuna, and other blubbery cuts of raw fish don't belong in your tummy. He's got some better, more traditional alternatives.
You could build castles and spaceships out of Legos, but isn't that what most people do? Try something different—make Lego sushi instead. It's hard, sharp-edged, and indigestible! [via Adorablog and Sushi or Death]
Undaunted by the recent New York Times discovery that tuna served in Manhattan sushi houses often contains dangerous levels of mercury, my wife Sarah and I took our 9-week-old daughter to our favorite East End sushi restaurant, Yama Q on Main Street in Bridgehampton. Sarah is still sensitive to government warnings that pregnant and breast-feeding women should avoid tuna, swordfish and other big, long-lived fish that are likely to contain high levels of mercury. Although she didn’t crave sushi during her pregnancy, she seems to think about it constantly while she nurses. And she’s well aware of the extensive medical evidence that fish oils nurture baby brains.
Yama Q serves some of the freshest seafood on the East End, owing partly to its talented sushi chef and its owner’s extensive connections with local fishers. (The non-sushi part of the menu has also built ranks of fans; it’s an ever-changing and eclectic combination of veggie-rich, eco-healthy, fusion dishes that recently included monk fish fritters, Caribbean style cod, and a tea kettle of bay scallops in their own broth.)
Adding to the confusion around what to order at the sushi bar if you are concerned about food safety (and sustainability), the New York Times' investigation of mercury levels in tuna served in Manhattan restaurants raises many more questions than it answers. The Times reports that 5 of 20 samples tested had mercury levels so high "that a diet of six pieces a week would exceed accepted safety levels. This sounds like scary and bad news for restaurateurs and sushi lovers. Statistically speaking, how relevant are these findings? There has not been much research into the impact of high mercury consumption in adults, so how scared should we be? How variable are mercury levels from fish to fish? Do mercury levels in fish show any seasonality? Do suppliers actually monitor the mercury levels of their fish? And last but not least, what's a serious eater to do?
Sushi Pack is a new cartoon series on CBS featuring a group of crime-fighting sushi (plus one condiment)—Maguro Maki (tuna), Ikura Maki (salmon), Kani Maki (crab), Tako Maki (octopus), and Wasabi. They're up against the Legion of Low Tide—Toro (fatty tuna), Unagi (eel), Mochi Mochiato (frozen rice-coated ice cream ball), Uni (sea urchin), Fugu (blowfish) and Titanium Chef (a catfish sushi chef). Young impressionable minds everywhere can now spend Saturday mornings becoming familiar with sushi terms. If sushi wasn't mainstream before, it is now. [via Sushi or Death]
So, Serious Eaters, armed with Nick Tosches's sensible and comprehensible sushi criteria, which you are free to ignore if you have your own set of standards, we are going to put together the ultimate sushi finder's list in any city or country Serious Eaters have eaten in. I am going to reach out to all the constituencies in the Serious Eats universe: the legion of passionate and discerning community members and my restaurant critic and food editor friends and acquaintances around the world who often weigh in on things they care about on the site. Please give us names, addresses, phone numbers, and ZIP codes in your write-up along with a sentence or two about what makes the place unique or distinctive. In other words, tell us its story, so that we know why we should care about the place. You can also feel free to second somebody else's choice or choices.
Editor's note: All good sushi is expensive. Cheap sushi is a contradiction in terms. Some places are cheaper than others, but, apart from a few lunch specials, it is hard for me to imagine spending less than $50 for a good sushi meal. You can get edible sushi for less, but it's never going to be great. It can be good enough to eat and enjoy, but that's about it. That's just the way it is with sushi. I'm sorry.
I am going to start the Serious Eats Sushi Roll rolling with a few New York City picks:
Has anyone else noticed that both the food and food media world have gone nuts for sushi? There are two serious books vying for our attention—Trevor Corson's The Zen of Fish and Sasha Issenberg's The Sushi Economy—and an exhaustively comprehensive, brilliant-but-nutty 50,000-word piece about sushi and its idiosyncratic, tradition-dominated culture by the insanely brilliant Nick Tosches in Vanity Fair.
From what I've read and heard, both sushi books are worth reading. Tosches's piece was so compelling and so enveloping that I closed my eyes and thought I had become one of the Harry Potter pod people who took the latest and last installment of the beloved series home with them last weekend and didn't come out until they knew what happened to everyone. In Tosches's sushi piece, all the fish die—and I don't think I'm ruining anything for anybody when I reveal that.
Tosches does give his elegantly gonzo take on the differences between bad, good, very good, and great sushi joints.
On a sushi-filled New York Times op-ed page, Trevor Corson offers us a prescription for sushi eating in America, and Stephen Shaw says the pregnancy police are all wrong in advising pregnant women not to eat sushi.
Here's what Corson says:
What we need isn’t more tuna, but a renaissance in American sushi; to discover for ourselves—and perhaps to remind the Japanese—what sushi is all about. A trip to the neighborhood sushi bar should be a social exchange that celebrates, with a sense of balance and moderation, the wondrous variety of the sea.
I suggest that customers refuse to sit at a table or look at a menu. We should sit at the bar and ask the chef questions about everything—what he wants to make us and how we should eat it. We should agree to turn our backs on our American addictions to tuna (for starters, try mackerel), globs of fake wasabi (let the chef add the appropriate amount), gallons of soy sauce (let the chef season the sushi if it needs seasoning), and chopsticks (use your fingers so the chef can pack the sushi loosely, as he would in Japan). Diners will be amazed at how following these simple rules can make a sushi chef your friend, and take you on new adventures in taste.
In return, the chefs, be they Japanese or not, must honor the sushi tradition and make the effort to educate us—no more stoicism. They must also be willing to have a candid conversation about the budget before the meal; it’s the only way American diners will be willing to surrender to the chef’s suggestions. Sushi should never be cheap, but it also should never be exorbitant, because that makes it impossible to create a clientele of regulars.
This all sounds well and good, but the idea that sushi chefs will volunteer straight talk about how much a sushi meal is going to cost and abandon their classic stoicism strikes me as a bit of cross-cultural social engineering that just isn't going to fly. Corson is asking sushi chefs to ignore hundreds of years of cultural breeding. Conversely, the idea that Americans shouldn't order what they have clearly demonstrated they like is also not likely to happen. In theory, Corson's prescriptions sound like a persuasive cultural exchange program. In reality, it is not going to happen.
And just when you thought we were finished with sushi there's more.
Slate talks sushi,"its history, its cultural status, its environmental impact, and its future," with Sasha Issenberg and Trevor Corson, authors of The Sushi Economy
It's entirely possible that we may be living in an unusual historical moment that might not last. That's the case for seafood across the board. You've got some scientists saying that we're basically going to run out of fish by the year 2050 and squid may be the only thing left. To me, sushi's really a treat, and I eat it maybe once a month—once every two months at most. I'm happy to go to the sushi bar and have just five or six nigiri that are very unusual and special. These fish are—and should be—luxury items because we're running out of them.
I like sushi. I like the color blue. I might even like blue sushi, but I have a feeling it's not something you can get at your local sushi bar. Can anyone make me a blue sushi bento box? Roy's girlfriend Reiko made one for him! Be sure to check out the rest of her intricate bento box creations. That's real love.
In Japan the sushi-grade tuna shortage has gotten so bad, sushi chefs are being forced to think about using alternatives like raw venison, and eek!, raw horse. While horsemeat is frowned upon here, it is thought to be a delicacy in places like Italy and Japan. The tuna shortage is making many Japanese sushi chefs very unhappy:
"It's like America running out of steak," said Tadashi Yamagata, vice chairman of Japan's national union of sushi chefs. "Sushi without tuna just would not be sushi."
The Washington Post's food section had a fun and informative interview with Trevor Corson, author of The Zen of Fish: The Story of Fish, from Samurai to Supermarket
At kaiten sushi restaurants, you'll find affordable sushi passing before you on a conveyor belt. Typically the sushi chefs are stationed on on an island and customers are seated around the island where the conveyor belt passes in front of them. You pick what you want from the conveyor belt, and your final bill is calculated based the number and kind of plates you've cleaned off. Here are a couple related videos you might enjoy. . .
Nina Lalli reviews The Sushi Economy, one of the books mentioned in the Vanity Fair piece, in this week's Village Voice:
Issenberg argues that the worldwide sushi system is a positive example of globalization. As he describes it, tuna in particular moves from the hands of fishermen to any number of middlemen by a code of trust. Despite the fact that a fish bears no label or brand, and its appraisal is entirely subjective, Issenberg says "few participants ever feel as though they get ripped off." Yet he also acknowledges the ugly side of global sushi. Most revolting is an aside about a New Jersey broker whose reaction to September 11 was "Sons of bitches! I had tuna on one of those planes!"
June's Vanity Fair includes a great feature by Nick Tosches on Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market, its fish, and beyond to New York's most expensive restaurant, Masa. Tsukiji is the largest in the world fish market, moving more than 2,000 tons of seafood a day. New York's Fulton Fish Market, the second-largest fish market in the world, moves only 115 tons a year, an average of less than half a ton each working day. Worth reading all the way through, especially if you're a sushi lover.
Lee Hefter, Wolfgang Puck's right-hand man and the executive chef at Spago Beverly Hills and the steakhouse Cut, visits Japan for a week every year for inspiration and goes home with new ideas on how to prepare the food at his restaurants—on a previous trip, a meal at a Tokyo restaurant where a steak can cost $1,400 gave him the idea for the ultra-high temperature plus wood smoke process he uses on his steaks back in Los Angeles. This March, two LA Times reporters tagged along to document the experience; Hefter gets tips on where to eat from chefs like Nobu Matsuhisa and Masa Takayama and does a lot of research, so if you're visiting Japan anytime soon do your tastebuds a favor and take the list of restaurants from his trip along with you!
Fans of Japanese food, take note: One of Hefter's favorite places is a small tempura bar, where the chef treats the frying like art. Hefter says, pityingly, "It's amazing how many people go through life thinking they've had tempura," and I believe him. From the sounds of it, I've never really had tempura myself, and I've been to Japan. Perhaps more surprisingly, he only had sushi once on his trip, at an eight-stool sushi bar without a glass case or a list of fish to choose from because the chef only serves seafood that are in season.
"Her name was Rachael, she said. She was blond and wore a disarming, gleaming-white smile. Her smile, however, was about the only thing she was wearing, with the exception of a few chrysanthemums affixed to her underwear and banana leaves carefully positioned along the length of her body." In today's New York Times, Eddie Lin visits the newly-opened West Hollywood restaurant Hadaka Sushi, where you can eat your sushi off a semi-naked model. $1,100 to hire her, sushi comes extra. Nyotaimori, or "body sushi" is alleged to be a practice of the Yakuza; the woman is supposed to be nude, with body hair shaved, and trained to lie still for hours.
(Lin shared some video from Hadaka on his site Deep End Dining back in March, saying "please check your prissy at the door.")
If you like sushi and want everyone to know it, this is the tie for you! Mmmm, sushi. $34 at Uncommon Goods.
[via swissmiss]
Maki Itoh says, "Tomorrow, March 3rd, is Momo no sekku or Peach Day in Japan. Peach blossoms usually start blooming around this time, signifying the coming of spring. It’s also the day for hina matsuri, the Doll Festival or Girls’ Festival." She then suggests making two kinds of pretty, delicate sushi in girly colors that match those traditionally associated with the festival (yellow, pink, white and green), the Hamaguri-zushi (clam sushi) and the Smoked salmon temari zushi (ball-shaped sushi). They both look so good (and so tasty) that you'll be probably be making them for dinner parties in the future, even if you don't make them tomorrow.
Cooking Cute made this amazing Year of the Pig bento the other day: "salmon-rice sushi shaped like little piggies, hotdog flowers with carrot-star centers, kamaboko fans, tricolor swirled sushi made from three flavors of sticky rice, sweet sticky rice flowers, pig-shaped spam nigiri, and a pig-shaped egg."
Someone please make me one of these for lunch today? Thanks!
Okay, I pointed to these guys already but they keep giving and giving, I can't resist. Check out these (apparently discontinued, sadly) sushi USB drives, strawberry milk sausage, and sushi-making robot.
This "head tired sexy knee pillow" has NOTHING to do with food but it may be my favorite thing on the site.
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