Sushi

[rusnak]

You don't count the number of washings, you look at the clarity of the water. When the water doesn't look like milk, but more like coconut water, you're good to go.

You don't have to soak the rice with a Zojirushi.

Here's some background: The best way to cook rice is with a gas range, and a glass pot with a tight fitting glass lid. People have just forgotten how to first boil the rice, and then turn the heat low, and then up, down, up, down, etc. so that the rice is steamed perfectly. Rice cookers were invented to keep rice warm, but were bad at steaming the rice. When Zojirushi came up with their "fuzzy logic" rice steamer, it changed the game so to speak. These make rice pretty much idiot proof, and save time because you don't have to soak the rice, as you still did have to with the early generation Rival, Tiger, Panasonic, Sanyo, etc rice cookers. All of these rice cookers are trying to duplicate the technique that Grandma learned on her gas range that lit with wooden matches. BTW Breville makes a very interesting rice cooker. If mine wasn't perfect, I'd buy it. It would make probably a perfect gift for a Foodie.

[sc_rufctr]

Sushi... Overrated.

It's bland without Wasabi and the fish sauce is usually fake.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by john70t

I've been told that if you get good sushi such as from a local master, don't use any soy because it would be an insult to the chef.
(i.e. his food tastes so bad it has to be covered up).
Japanese quietly laugh at Americans who pour soy over their meal like it's fudge sauce on ice cream.
I think you're supposed to turn it over and lightly dip the fish part (without breaking it in half)

In general, when talking about nigiri, at least, yes, condiments including wasabi are added to each piece of nigiri. You shouldn't need to add anything. If you do, like you say below, don't get the rice into the soy sauce, dip the fish side into it.

Practice your o'hashi skills with peanuts.

sushi is finger food. You're not supposed to eat it with chopsticks.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Sushi... Overrated.

It's bland without Wasabi and the fish sauce is usually fake.

fish sauce? What are you talking about, Vietnamese sushi?

99.99% of the time the wasabi is fake, and real wasabi is 1000x better than the fake stuff.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by masraum

fish sauce? What are you talking about, Vietnamese sushi?

99.99% of the time the wasabi is fake, and real wasabi is 1000x better than the fake stuff.

yeah that had me scratching my head too.

Have you tried the wasabi relish? It has some sort of pickled green vegetable in it, and you add shoyu. Amazing.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by rusnak

yeah that had me scratching my head too.

Have you tried the wasabi relish? It has some sort of pickled green vegetable in it, and you add shoyu. Amazing.

I haven't seen/had that, no.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by masraum

I haven't seen/had that, no.

DAmn. I can't wait till the sushi restaurants open. I'll have to take some pics.

[WPOZZZ]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Sushi... Overrated.

It's bland without Wasabi and the fish sauce is usually fake.

The wasabi is usually fake...just horseradish. The real wasabi is about $80 lb.

[sc_rufctr]

Don't you guys get the fish sauce in a plastic fish? You twist the tail off.

I make my own Wasabi from scratch. It's easy once you've done it a few times.

[WPOZZZ]

I haven't seen the plastic fish in decades. Back then it was filled with soy sauce, not fish sauce. You make your own wasabi, from wasabi root?

[WPOZZZ]

You are talking about these, right?

[IROC]

I travel to Japan on occasion (been there twice since December) and generally don't like sushi. Or at least I don't like sushi in the US. We went to a little restaurant in Tokai (Ibaraki) that sold nothing but sushi, so I just pointed at a couple of things on the menu. It was awesome. This place had one of those conveyor belts that brought the food around.

I eat some crazy stuff while in Japan. Some of it is good and some of it is...not.

[WPOZZZ]

Those conveyor belt sushi places are usually not very good.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by WPOZZZ

Those conveyor belt sushi places are usually not very good.

I'm not cultured enough to know the difference. . It was very inexpensive (like most stuff in Japan). Most sushi was 200-400 Yen.

I can issue a strong warning not to eat this:

[onewhippedpuppy]

My wife and I LOVE sushi, we got hooked on it when we were dieting together and have been hooked ever since. We have two local places we frequent, one has been open for takeout and the other closed entirely, so I’m hoping we can get back into our routine of hitting each of them weekly now that the lockdown is over.

Btw speaking of Japan, I had sushi in a hotel near Narita Airport that blew away anything I’ve ever had in the USA. I’m sure in the spectrum of Japanese sushi it was nothing special, but to an American it was fantastic.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by WPOZZZ

The wasabi is usually fake...just horseradish. The real wasabi is about $80 lb.

I've had the real stuff. I've watched them grind the root. I've even had it ground on a traditional sharkskin covered board.

Wasabi: you know it well, or so you think. Chances are, however, you've never actually eaten real wasabi, or at least not very often. This is because most of the wasabi served outside of Japan is a mixture of horseradish, mustard and food coloring. Even in Japan, the demand for real wasabi is so high that you'll often find the horseradish mixture instead, with little, if any, real wasabi mixed in.

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Don't you guys get the fish sauce in a plastic fish? You twist the tail off.

I make my own Wasabi from scratch. It's easy once you've done it a few times.

You buy the root?

Originally Posted by WPOZZZ

I haven't seen the plastic fish in decades. Back then it was filled with soy sauce, not fish sauce. You make your own wasabi, from wasabi root? You are talking about these, right?

Right, that's soy sauce, not fish sauce. Fish sauce in the condiment of choice in Vietnam and Thailand and I think a couple of other countries. It's made from fermented fish, not soybeans and grain which is what soy sauce is made from.

[WPOZZZ]

Originally Posted by IROC

I'm not cultured enough to know the difference. . It was very inexpensive (like most stuff in Japan). Most sushi was 200-400 Yen.

I can issue a strong warning not to eat this:

Did you spit or swallow? lol

[IROC]

Originally Posted by WPOZZZ

Did you spit or swallow? lol

LOL. Yeah. You nailed it. I ate it, but won't do that again. One of my Japanese colleagues over there is a "foodie" and always takes us out and feeds us crazy stuff. I figure "what the heck" and try everything. The only thing I didn't try last time was some deep sea fish (maybe 6" long) that is cooked whole and you are supposed to eat the whole fish (bones, head and all) because evidently that's just what you do.

To me, Japanese food runs the full gamut - some of it is absolutely awesome and some of it is so bad I sit there in disbelief that humans actually eat that stuff.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

My wife and I LOVE sushi, we got hooked on it when we were dieting together and have been hooked ever since. We have two local places we frequent, one has been open for takeout and the other closed entirely, so I’m hoping we can get back into our routine of hitting each of them weekly now that the lockdown is over.

Btw speaking of Japan, I had sushi in a hotel near Narita Airport that blew away anything I’ve ever had in the USA. I’m sure in the spectrum of Japanese sushi it was nothing special, but to an American it was fantastic.

When I first moved to Houston about 25 years ago, I didn't eat sushi, but my wife did. We went to a place that seemed pretty good, and certainly had a great atmosphere. We then tried a place that was across the street, that ended up being even better. After that, we couldn't bring ourselves to go back to the first place. When you start experiencing great sushi, it gets harder and harder to go get moderate sushi. At least for us since we mostly eat raw fish nigiri. But I can go to places that are decent, but when I do, I'll usually shift my order away from raw fish nigiri to rolls or handrolls with things besides raw fish. I still may have some raw fish.

I'd had/tried "ama ebi" (sweet shrimp) a couple of times in Houston. It's raw shrimp nigiri, and then usually served with the heads tempura battered and fried. You eat the heads too.



I'd always thought "why do they call that 'sweet shrimp'?" Then I was in Seattle on business with a colleague who also liked sushi, and we stumbled upon a place called "Shiro's" (about 20 years ago). It was a small-ish place and packed with a wait. We got lucky and got a spot at the bar. The guy at the bar was the owner, Shiro. He was interesting and lively. He'd wanted to be a sushi chef since he was a kid, but his father was a teacher and made him finish school instead of going to apprentice.

I'd eaten several types of raw fish sushi before, but I hadn't been willing to try everything available. We started out ordering things we liked, and it was all amazing. It was as if we'd never had real sushi before because the sushi from this place was so good. We basically ended up eating whatever Shiro recommended.

There were a couple of guys farther down the bar that were also getting a ton of stuff and going with the flow. At one point I saw Shiro reach under the bar and put two shrimp on the bar... two LIVE shrimp. I watched as Shiro turned those two shrimp into sushi in a matter of seconds. I knew right away, that if I was ever going to have ama ebi, this was the place to do it. The next time Shiro came over, I asked for an order of ama ebi. It was amazing. It was like eating sushi candy.

During our meal, Shiro explained that we should have some oyster (or was it clam) sushi. He had bought them that morning at the fish market. He'd had to try 5 different purveyors before he found some that met his expectations. Absoluletly everything that we had there was at the time, the best sushi that I'd ever had. Since then, it's still at the top of the pack, but I've probably had comparable sushi several more times and from a few more places including from a colleague who was an IT technician at a different company which is another story.

The amazing thing about that experience was that the whole bill for the two of us was <$150 which was amazing because I'd never eaten so much sushi or sushi of that quality, and I'd had bills that were close.

I knew that I had to take my wife to Shiro's, unfortunately, it took us nearly 20 years to get her to Seattle and Shiro's had been sold. Fortunately, Shiro had a new place open much closer to the Pike Place Market in Seattle. It's much swankier and bigger and much more expensive, but it's still amazing. To get in, I assume you can make reservations, or we ended up waiting in line before the place opened to get in the same night.

[flatbutt]

I prefer sashimi to the fancy nancy boy versions of sushi.