Over here in Seattle, I’d swear we had more Japanese restaurants than Tokyo. I love Sushi and find myself eating it more than twice a week at one of the many quality establishments in the city. Lately, however, I’ve noticed something weird.
When I order a plate of California rolls, there is always a pattern that is repeated in every single Sushi place I go to. Four or five of the rolls are normal California rolls, stuffed with crab, avocado, etc. But there is one on the plate that is always no more than a tiny ball of rice with seaweed wrapped around it and roe sprinkled on top.
Has anyone else encountered this before? And does anybody know why they do it this way? Like I said, it seems to be common practice at every Sushi place I visit.
It’s a standard roe sushi. The “little ball of rice wraped in seeweed with something on top” is called gunkan-maki (warship roll). It’s called that way because it vaguely looks like a warship. It’s used whenever the sushi topping doesn’t hold itself together well enough, such as with roe, urchins or various seefood salads.
Well, OK, it’s sushi, but I haven’t encountered that presentation of maki here in the mid-west, either. If you order California rolls out here, you get just California rolls (which, actually, I never get, but that’s personal preference). If you want your maki with roe, you have to ask for maki with roe. Maybe we’re just barbarous gaijin, and I realize the US mid-west is not considered a hotbed of sushi action, but the custom described in the OP hasn’t made it out here.
