I’m sorry but that’s just plain wrong. While sushi may look very simple, it’s totally not. Things to “put thought into”: amount of rice, flavor of rice, preparation of fish, to add wasabi inside the sushi or not, etc etc. Sure, it’s not as complicated as say, turducken, but it’s not like the chef is slapping fish on rice and saying “here you go!”
Some of it is.
We’re talking here of some of the, let’s say, “classic” sushi: a piece of raw fish on a bed of vinegared rice, or “sashimi”, a piece of raw fish (that people can still not seem to agree whether you eat with WITH pickled ginger and wasabi, or use those as palate cleansers). This is the kind of stuff that people pay good money for, and gush about in ways that are way out of proportion with how good that can possibly be.
I know there are other “sushis”. . .eggs, marianades, rolls, eels. I’ll admit that stuff can be interesting if you’ll admit that a one ounce chunk of raw salmon for $5.00 is as boring as, well. . .there’s not much more boring than a chunk of raw salmon.
“ooo, its subtle,” people say.
Oh yeah. . .how sharp are you at picking up that subtlety after you’ve just eaten a bit of wasabi, pickled ginger, and soy sauce and washed it down with rice wine?
Well, I don’t put wasabi on my sushi and sometimes I just merely dip the fish (not rice) for a split second in the soy, but, yes, there is some subtlety. The delicate flavor of the rice combined with the exquisitely flavorful fish is cuisine with thought.
It took me about five or six tries before I really, really appreciated sushi and, yes, most of the time I would prefer a platter full of otoro sushi to a seared tuna in olive oil and pepper, although I very much enjoy both. If I could make sushi reliably and to my satisfaction at home, I would. Since I can’t, I sear my sushi-grade tuna steaks at home, and go out for sushi.
To dismiss sushi as cuisine without thought is, frankly, insulting.
Good sushi will have a distinct flavor always. Obviously if you douse it with soy sauce and put a tablespoon of wasabi, then sure, but out of all the right ways to eat sushi that’s not one of them IMO.
And dont be dissin the salmon either 
No matter how much people talk about that exquisitely flavorful fish. . .the subtlety. . .the distinctive textures. . .they’re not MAGIC fish.
They’re the same fish that other restaurants are getting and preparing.
They’re the same fish I can get if I go to the same markets.
I can understand that people don’t like to believe that what they’ve spent thousands of dollars on over the years might be the emporers new clothes. But, cutting off a chunk of raw tuna and selling it at a premium for the privilege of not having a chef do anything to it isn’t how I like to spend my food dollars.
To whom? The “sushi chef” latino immigrants with 2 weeks on the job training?
Says the guy who grills his tuna with salt and pepper… :dubious:
The only way I can stand to eat tuna is in sushi. Grilled? Ugh, no. Awful stuff. Wrapped in rice and sushi, dipped in wasabi and soy sauce? Amazing.
I never said it was magic fish. I buy sushi-grade tuna a couple time a year. I know full well what it is.
Depends on the grade of fish you’re getting. I sure as hell wouldn’t use the ahi from my local supermarket for anything but a grilled preparation. And I’d sure as hell stay away from the salmon. But if you go to the same markets that the sushi purveyors go to, sure, we all can buy the same fish. It ain’t magic, like you said.
Well, the chef does cut it beautifully and the sushi rice is delicately flavored, well formed, and simply gorgeous. I can’t make good sushi rice at home for some reason. So you’re willing to pay a chef who salts and peppers his fish and slaps it on a grill for 60 seconds a side? I’d argue that’s even less preparation than handforming sushi. Any idiot can grill a fish rare. Why is this somehow better than sushi?
No, to the Japanese culture, I would think. I can’t recall ever being in a sushi place that was staffed by Latino immigrants. We obviously go to different locations.
I love sushi, and this thread is making me crave it.
Sushi advice: only eat it if it’s made on the spot, and only in a busy place where you have to wait because they’re preparing it for you. The more people waiting for the food, the fresher the fish is likely to be, and that’s a key ingredient.
The only unpleasant experiences I’ve had with sushi involved prepackaged plates in a supermarket, and sea urchin: soft, soggy, horrible taste. That stuff is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Must be an acquired taste.
What’s so great about seared tuna (I like it but I’d chose tuna sashimi over any day of the week)? Really, all of this is just too subjective. People are just trying to explain why they like it better than cooked fish (or why they like it at all). Cooked salmon is disgusting to me. I only eat it when there is no other option (weddings, work functions etc…). A good piece of raw fatty salmon dipped in a bit of good soy sauce slightly flavored with wasabi is heaven for me. I don’t care how it was prepared.
IMHO, someone who can’t accept that someone else would like one food over another, regardless of their own tastes, is a poo poo face.
Put it this way: sometimes, I just want something that is very very delicately prepared, with simple, straightforward ingredients, where the purity and taste of the ingredients are what make the dish. Sushi fulfils this desire. It’s very “clean” food, it leaves me light on my feet, and I feel good for the rest of the day. I also like a lot of traditional Italian preparations for this reason. I like my tomato sauce with nothing but the best tomatoes and olive oil, and some fresh basil leaves. I don’t want it muddied up with a bunch of crap. I usually like my pizzas the same way, clean and fresh tasting. No complex “pizza sauce”, no layer of cheese you can remove in one motion, and no three inches of ingredients. Gimme a good crust, a clean tomato sauce, and light toppings, and I’m a happy camper.
Sometimes, I’m in the mood for something more rich and complex. Sometimes I want a heavily-spiced Italian-American-style meatball spaghetti plate. Or a curry with a zillion spices in it. Or that Chicago-style pie (once a year).
But there are places for both types of cuisine, and just because it’s simple and minimally prepared, doesn’t mean it’s not good. When it comes to great beef, just give it to me raw, sliced very thinly with a drizzle of olive oil and perhaps lemon (carpaccio). I think it’s almost sacrilegious to eat oysters in any way but raw.
I’ve had uni (sea urchin) exactly once, and I was expecting it to be disgusting because many say uni tastes weird. Well, it tasted pretty normal to me. Kinda creamy. A little touch of iodine. Very rich. There was nothing “off” about it, to my tastes. I have heard, however, that bad uni is absolutely revolting, so I wonder if I just got lucky and got some very good stuff.
Some of us enjoy fast food and barbecue and sushi! Tell those threatened people that and see if their head a splode.
I love it, it tastes like a bite of the sea at night. (or how I imagine that must taste, that is)
If you are ever feeling adventurous, ask for nato beans. There is an acquired taste for you. I just love it. Asking for it has made me good friends with many a sushi chef. Most of them hate them but respect someone who has a taste for it.
I love urchin too, especially with a quail egg on top. That’s for hardcore sushi eaters.
Nato is even more hardcore than that. It tastes alright but the smell is terrible. Like you said, order nato and you have instant respect. I only eat that with one friend and it’s more of a macho thing than anything else.
I don’t find the smell of natto repugnant, but then again, I like the smell of Camembert and Livarot. I like natto served mixed with egg yolk and green onion, with a tiny shmear of that viciously hot Asian mustard on the side.
Uni to me tastes the way the tidepools on the Monterey peninsula smell - iodiney and sweet and gamy. I like it with a few drops of lemon juice to cut the richness.
I have only had “real”, very fresh, and very delicious sushi/sashimi once, and of all places, in Ohio. I went there on a first date with a truly wonderful woman and she, having eaten it before, served as my guide. I can’t remmber exactly what we had, but I know there was some sashimi and sushi rolls and buckwheat noodles, and some cooked eel that I didn’t really care for (very fishy), but it’s interesting and ironic that the only thing I didn’t like amongst all of the mostly raw meal was this cooked fish. I do remember being initially hesitant on my first tuna and salmon sashimi, but it was really quite good, and I was a bit surprised.
It was my first raw fish and I have a natural aversion having grown up with fish frys and the like. It seems a bit counterintuitive for me to eat raw fish and I never developed a taste for fish until my twenties (I was quite averse to cooked fish, let alone raw fish, throughout most of my life.).
If I had the money and access I think sushi would figure into my lifestyle. But really, for me it’s just not feasible.
Regardless of what your personal tastes are, it’s pretty fucking insulting to claim that people whose tastes differ are lying about it.
How on earth is tuna + butter + salt + pepper a more complicated flavor that tuna + sushi rice + a bit of wasabi/soy sauce?
Well it’s not, they are both very simple. But just as sushi opened the door to raw fish for me-- fish with classic, complex, buttery, french sauces from a professional kitchen really kicked down the door of my total fish aversion. I never even would have tried sushi if it weren’t for really good classically (western) prepared fish that introduced me to good seafood and what fish could be.
Well, I don’t see many totally raw beef items on US menus in general. Maybe people are worried about getting e. coli or something from the meat, I don’t know. However, I’ve only ever had carpaccio in places that seemed to know what they were doing culinarily, and it was ALMOST raw - seared just enough so that anything suspicious on the surface was killed. Maybe like one or two seconds on each side. And I thought it was quite good, FWIW. It was anything but shoe leather/Steak-Umm] - tender, juicy, and pretty darn red with the tiniest bit of grey around the edges.
I don’t think super-fast-searing and not-quite-raw status are especially blasphemous. I once had some nigiri from a VERY reputable sushi place near me (with one of the most anally-perfectionist sushi chefs I’ve ever seen) that had briefly-seared tuna on it that was excellent. So cooking, when applied in just the right amount, is not just for the ignorant “Sooshee-2-Go!” crowd.