The same could be said for any food product; beef, spinach, and peanut butter just for examples.
I actually prefer raw fish. I never eat cooked salmon but I could eat raw salmon (and tuna) until my stomach explodes. I also like my steaks rare, if there’s a risk to either of these I feel it’s well worth it.
I heard that American-style sushi, such as California Roll and the like is catching on in Japan, much to the consternation of purists.
How did this go ignored? I mean, I can’t be the only one to have taken that line in a very sexual (and hilarious) way.
Here’s somethin’, and this thread seems relevant… I’m a fat caucasian guy- blonde, reddish beard. I’ve often mused and thought about becoming a teppan yaki chef, I’ve got the grill skills and flourish, seems like something I could do and seriously commit myself to as a culinary art, it seems fun and interesting.
Problem is, I’ve never seen a white, caucasian, teppan yaki chef in America. I’ve only ever seen asian chefs that speak brokjen or very bad English.
I speak a little Japanese.
To get hired as a teppan chef, do I need to move to Japan and apprentice and subsequently become a dancing monkey gaijin chef? I figure I am almost unhireable in that position here in America.
If it helps you out at all, devilsknew, the only time i’ve been to a teppanyaki type place the chef was a white irish guy who looked and sounded not unlike Colin Farrell (though the majority of chefs were Asian).
yeah, raw gnocchi is for posers.
There are a lot of places that don’t stick to the purist line and are perfectly willing to experiment with new offerings. Usually either really upscale places that want to be trendy, or the fast food-style and take-out places that need to keep attracting customers. I think most of the places around Tsukiji don’t offer them half out of respect for tradition, and half out of fear of being ostracized from the neighborhood.
The folks I’ve asked think the California rolls sound interesting, but what stand out more are the reversed rolls with the rice on the outside.
Sush1 is th3 4w3s0m3 l4m3r, ur just p1ss3d cuz u sp1ll3d ur s4k3 b0mb 4nd 3v3ry0ne3 l4ugh3d atch00.
I don’t like cooked fish much, but I love Sushi. I ran into Maeglin and his wife on the train today and we stopped in to get a Ruby Foo some Maki and Dim Sum. It was pretty awesome.
When my daughter was born I had a platter made up special for me and delivered up to the hospital room by my friends’ Tora and Jane over at Ido Sushi on 7th Avenue at Bedford Street in the West Village of Manhattan.
I like how whenever anyone enjoys something and takes the doing of it at all seriously enough to know something about it, they are being pretentious snobs.
Man, I hate those people who like Hamburgers. God, those people are so pretentious.
It does remind me of the very first tuna I had ever.
I hate the smell of canned tuna. It smells like diseased crotch. So I was rather anxious when the appetizer served to our table was seared ahi tuna with wasabi.
It was awfully pretty, though, and smelled good, so I had a nibble.
I had to restrain myself from taking half of that tuna, let me tell you…
My favorite appetizer in the good sushi place near here is the gyu tataki, which is apparently quite authentically Japanese. Mmmmm.
Then rolled in tobiko; I think we call that a Boston Roll.
I’ve gotten food poisoning from some nachos at a concert, and from curly fries at Jack in the Box. That was bad enough that I didn’t eat there again for over a decade. I eat all kinds of sushi, especially the raw stuff, and I have never gotten sick from it.
This is the Prime Directive of sushi: if the restaurant and especially the preparation area look even remotely scuzzy, or if you can smell the fish without actually holding it directly under your nose, run away.
Right on, brother!
What’s next? A rant about those pretentious beatniks with their black clothes and their coffeehouses and their poetry and stuff?
These are called uramaki, or inside-out rolls. “Ura” means reverse and “maki” means roll. Temaki, (te = hand), is the name for the cone-shaped kind ^o^ Oh, and the regular rolls are called Makizushi (rolled sushi).
Last time I was in a restaurant with my brother, he ordered gnocchi with white truffle essence. Laying it on a bit thick, y’think?
They were delicious.
I’ll throw in the obligatory " Well, down here we call that there stuff bait."
Since he is not likely to get the memo, it may fall on me to inform the chief. It’s too bad, since he’s kept his shop for over 35 years in the same place in our quiet Yokohama neighborhood. The shop looks new, so he must have rebuilt it within the last couple of years, before we moved in.
A man who refuses to purchase kampachi as only farm-grown is available now, and he wouldn’t wish it on his enemies, let along the loyal customers who came anywhere from a couple times a year to a couple times a month.
There are no prices in his store, and if you pay by card, he passes along the extra charge. His wife run the register and brings the ogari tea. His apprentice makes the soup now, so he’s coming up in the world.
Not large, the counter can take 12 people, max. There’s some tables on the other side where people can order the cheaper sets instead of ordering nigiri by the piece while chatting with him and the other regulars, all neighbors and friends.
Most fish is cut straight, others in immaculately spaced ripples. You don’t get to ask too many questions to masters. So it will take a while to find out why some are cut this way.
The fish, fantastic. The sake, exceptional. The beer, cold. Uni which melts in your mouth followed by aji then toro Cold winter nights made warm with a hot sake and hot summer days cooled with Sapporo beer.
The OP is right, sushi is not a lifestyle – a transient fad adapted quickly and abandoned with equal ease. No, sushi, and this artist, is much more. He is an institute.
The OP is an idiot. It’s one thing to not like a particular food, but it is the height of asshattery to think that people who do like it are doing it for some weird pretentious nongastronomic reason. I’ve been eating it all my life, and I will certainly grant that it is probably an acquired taste. Almost everyone I know loves the stuff. The few people I know who probably don’t like it have self selected themselves out as dining companions. It is usually kind of expensive, so it’s normally a special treat for me. We are spoiled here on the coasts, and the business is pretty competitive, so as far as I’m concerned, there are very few shitty sushi restaurants. I’ve been to a few all you can eat sushi joints, and they have been pretty mediocre, but I still managed to eat way too much.
Anyone who eats at sushi restaurants, but doesn’t like it, and only does it to impress people is a soulless moron who doesn’t deserve anyone’s consideration.
For a long time, I didn’t eat sushi. I’ve never pitched a fit about it or been mean about it, I always say, as politely as possible that I don’t care for it. And I’ve been amazed at the kind of rude derision I encountered. Friends who were normally kind and generous to me, and people who barely knew me who were otherwise polite got downright ugly when I said I didn’t eat sushi. I heard the “There’s a McDonald’s down the street” line more than once. I never failed to be taken aback at how people think it’s OK to treat someone like dirt for not wanting to eat something that, frankly, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Where I grew up, there was no sushi. I didn’t eat Asian food, period, until college. So cut me a break, because I’ve expanded my horizons considerably since then. And even if you think I’m a whiny baby because of it, there’s no excuse for rudeness.
Speaking of which, I still don’t eat sushi on a regular basis, but if I’m getting taken to a very nice restaurant for work, I’ll eat sushi. I once ate about $150 worth in a night, the really good stuff, and I was still not all that impressed. It’s just not my thing. Give me a steak. Give me some vindaloo. Hell, give me the gnocchi. I’d rather eat any of those than $150 sushi, any day.
And yes, there are people who are insanely crazy over sushi in NYC. I totally get the “sushi as a lifestyle” joke from the OP. It is just a joke, you know…