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Title: Things You Look for in a Good Japanese Sushi Restaraunt 2
Categories: Japanese Info Fish Rice Hawaii
Yield: 4 Servings
| 1 | Info file |
8. The only thing left now is to try the sushi and form your opinion based on what it tastes like. Perhaps, there is one thing you might do as a preliminary test. It is said that every good sushi chef should know how to make tamago (egg). This is where egg is cooked into a shape like a cigar box and then sliced for nigiri sushi. The texture should be light but firm, the taste light and slightly sweet and the shape should be regular. Some people feel that when going to a new restaurant, they should order this item first and if the tamago is not of very good quality, then the sushi chef cannot be very good. I think that this is actually true and that if you go to a restaurant where they do not have this kind of tamago or where the tamago does not meet a high standard of taste and appearance, then it is not likely that the sushi chef is very good.
9. As they say in Japan, "bon appetit!"
From: "Nuuanu Menehune" On Sat, 4 Apr 1998, Nuuanu Menehune writes and makes several cogent points
that are spot on. He continues;
> 5. A good sushi chef will > have his own recipe for his shoyu. He will
often add sake, mirin (which can > contain sake and sugar) or maybe even
sugar to purchased shoyu and then cook > them together (bring to boil and
then let sit). Therefore, the shoyu at the > bar should taste sweeter than
shoyu right out of the bottle and be more > complex.
But rounds the corner, hits number 5 and suffers a meltdown and proceeds to
hit the wall. Five is WRONG. He has just described teriyaki sauce. No
self-respecting itamae would even think of this. Heavens to murgatroid!!!
> 6. Next, on nigiri sushi I would look at the size of the piece of fish >
compared to the size of the rice. The better the restaurant, the bigger the
> size of the piece of fish compared to the size of the rice. In some >
restaurants, you can barely see the rice because the fish is draped on it
so > that both ends are covered and rice can only be seen from the sides.
Depends on the target market and thus targeted price point. I've had some
very good kaiten/mawari-zushi made with good rice and fish, in other words
good quality, but 2 pieces for 80 yen. I guess you could make the argument
that this "fast-food" sushi isn't high cuisine, but it sure was good.
> 7. Spices in different types of dipping sauce okay. In fact, one sing >
of a good sushi chef is the ability to mix or even create different dipping
> sauces for different kinds of fish and sushi.
Largely true with the exception of "dipping sauces." Never seen any sauce
other than straight shoyu served with sushi in Japan (anago & unagi are the
exceptions which prove the rule). Different sauces with sashimi, katsuo
tataki, etc., yes. But certainly not the teriyaki sauce described above.
"Spices in the shoyu" with _sushi_?????? Save us all!
> 8. The only thing left now is to try the sushi and form your opinion
based > on what it tastes like. Perhaps, there is one thing you might do as
a > preliminary test. It is said that every good sushi chef should know how
to > make tamago (egg).
Good practice on the customer's part. If they can't even make a "basic"
like dashi-maki, then they're unlikely to do well with other things.
But what the heck do I know.... My host family's father used to put a
teaspoon of ajinomoto in his shoyu to eat otsukuri... Yikes!