Umamimart » Sushi

Raw Octopus from Tsukiji Market

kayoko — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:47:28 +0000

Just in at Sushi Kuni (my pop’s restaurant): RAW OCTOPUS (nama dako)! Kuni ordered this long, spindly tentacled arm last week straight from Tsukiji market. It was over three feet long, with a gorgeous purple-pink tone. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but there’s something oddly sexy about it.

Kuni lightly blanches it, only for a moment, so that it’s still raw in the middle. No vinegar necessary to tenderize it! Normal octopus is usually boiled thoroughly, often with vinegar, which is what makes this so especial.

Unlike usual octopus, which can get flavorless after so much chewing, this was so tender and sprightly! I would even say a bit crisp– like good mirugai (geoduck). I loved the texture. Kuni just sprinkles a bit of salt on it, and with a squeeze of lemon, it’s a pillowish, magnificent bite. I would recommend it sashimi style– don’t ruin it by adding rice to it.

For your nerds, here’s a great article by master food scientist Harold McGee about preparing octopus.

Brooklyn Takeout Twofer: Khao Sarn and Kyoto Sushi

Thomas Parke D'Invilliers — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 02:51:00 +0000

Sometimes when I’m lazy, I order delivery. And sometimes when I’m lazy, it will be during the middle of the day. When these powers combine, I seek comfort in the lunch special.

KHAO SARN

My love affair with Thai food began in 2001, when I first tried pad thai and since then, has blossomed into a love of even more pad thai. I’m boring, yes, I order the same thing when I go to Thai restaurants. Then again, I just like to say I use it as a barometer to judge how good the restaurant is by their pad thai.

There are several choices for Thai in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area of Brooklyn. And all of them offer delivery. I tend to bounce around depending on what I feel like eating.

This was my second time trying Khao Sarn. The beauty of the place is not that their delivery is pretty quick, but also they offer online ordering. However, every time I’ve tried online ordering, it hasn’t really worked so I end up calling anyway. That’s okay, though.

Their lunch specials are reasonably priced ($6 chicken or veggie based, $7 beef or pork), come with tom yum soup or salad and vegetable spring roll. Because minimum delivery is $10, I had to order two dishes but I’m not complaining. Although my pants are.

Thai Salad

Really nice salad. Usually the salads that come with any lunch special or meal are simple: lettuce, maybe a few grated carrots, a tomato wedge, lots of greasy dressing. This was a pretty complete salad molded into a tiny takeout box, with lots of vegetables, fried tofu, and a sweet and nutty Thai dressing (which I actually don’t like).

Pad Thai with Chicken

One cannot go wrong with peanuts, egg, daikon, scallions, bean sprouts, tofu, although I cannot even begin to tell you how many times this dish has been messed up for me. I’m not sure about its authenticity, but this is definitely the pad thai I’m used to, with a lime to combat the grease.

Still slightly warm and not congealed, this really hits the spot when you have that noodle craving mid-day. Not too greasy, but will definitely make you bloated the next day. Lots of nice bean sprouts to add crunch and texture. I’m salivating thinking about this.

Eggplant and Basil Sauce

I have this weird fondness for everything eggplant, so I often try to get it when I can in any form. I requested that the dish be made mostly of eggplant and they happily obliged. Sauce is pretty spicy, and very basil-y, almost overpowering with basil. Not too salty, which I find a lot of sauce-based dishes tend to be. It’s a solid dish. I requested brown rice and this made me feel a bit better about my expanding waistline.

Overall, Khao Sarn is a reliable place for Thai food that’s reasonably priced (particularly mid-day), and decent in terms of quality and taste. Fast delivery. Great for those Thai cravings. I’ve never eaten at the actual location, but every time I walk by, they are advertising happy hour specials. Maybe that is worth checking out at some point.

KYOTO SUSHI

I am a sushi/sashimi monster. I admit it. I could eat raw fish until each species becomes extinct one-by-one. And I often crave this when I am not near a sushi/sashimi joint, which basically means I’m not in Manhattan or I’m sitting on my behind at home thinking about food.

Obviously, probably the thought of having sushi and sashimi delivered to your door probably turns the stomachs of many a reader. I am not below this, however, and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

When I go all out, I GO ALL OUT. So my usual order is a Sashimi Deluxe from Kyoto Sushi, which is basically the largest sashimi combo there is for 1 person, and in my opinion, more bang for your buck. It’s also helpful that when you call in your order, they ask for your phone number and have your address stored so there’s no need to keep spelling out your street name and list the cross streets.

Comes with soup and salad. Generic, but you know, a touch you come to appreciate when a lot of places don’t just give these amenities to you.

White rice. With sesame seeds sprinkled on top.

I wish they offered brown rice like Khao Sarn. I would be willing to pay an extra dollar or two just to help keep my combat a high glycemic index anyday.

Takeout container chock full of sashimi and sushi: california rolls, imitation crab, shrimp, hamachi, scallop, tuna, salmon, white tuna, and an unidentifiable white fish that I cannot tell by taste.

The fish is cut a bit thickly, which makes it seem like a crude sort of meal, but overall, it really hits the spot when you’re craving raw fish. The fish is generally fresh, with no strange odor, and the fish color is decent.

Closeup.

Kyoto Sushi also offers a variety of specialty rolls (you know with names like “dragon” and have a lot of mayo in them), various lunch specials, teriyaki, noodles, etc.

I have only ventured outside the fish zone once, and was hankering for some tempura. I ordered the tofu tempura but they gave me teriyaki tofu, but I found out way too long after the delivery man left and I was hungry so I ate it anyway. It was basically agedashi tofu cut in triangles doused in a overwhelmingly sweet teriyaki sauce with mushy onions. Not cool.

So that was two strikes in one. To this day, I wonder what the regular tofu tempura tastes like. Maybe it is agedashi tofu sans the sauce. I would prefer that, maybe dip it in a little soy or something. Le sigh.

For affordable Japanese (not made or run by Japanese folks, FYI) and an authentic Asian deliveryman, choose Kyoto Sushi for your fishy needs.

KHAO SARN
311 Bedford Avenue
Brooklyn NY
T: 718.963.1238

KYOTO SUSHI
161 Nassau Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
T: 718.383.8882

*Thomas Parke D’Invilliers resides in Brooklyn and covets the Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton luggage set featured in ‘The Darjeeling Limited.’

Hokkaido JUNKtion: Oujousushi (Hakodate)

yoko — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:44:00 +0000

Hakodate is famous for its fresh seafood, so eating sushi was necessary. Being total newbies to the area, we chose a sushi restaurant that was listed in our JTB (Japan Travel Bureau) guide magazine.

About a 10 minute walk from Hakodate JR Station, Oujousushi is located on a desolate stretch of road next to a kimono shop. It was encouraging to see that there were two parties already seated there when we arrived – it was a Monday night.

They serve the sushi right on the counter:

The sushi chef grates the wasabi for you and serves it to you on your own individual shark-skin paddle:

Three-sashimi plate, freshest catch of the day:

Amaebi (sweet shrimp):

Live uni (Check out the video footage of this at the head of this post. It might be hard to tell, but the uni is definitely moving as its innards are being devoured.):

To die for saba (mackerel). This was the star of the night. The saba melted in my mouth and didn’t have a hint of sourness – very different from any type of saba I have had.

Classic maguro:

Glistening ika (squid):

Ikura in Hokkaido was all very sweet. It was delicious, but I have to admit, I might be a Tokyo girl who likes salty ikura.

Hirame (fluke):

Half-time soup:

Jelly-coated vegetable (forgot the name), popular in Hokkaido:

The chef strongly recommended we order anago. The roastiness was great, but I prefer my anago a little softer, with a more delicate sauce.

Kani (crab):

Squid caught that morning:

Grilled, on the house, as a celebratory nod to our recent union.

Uni:

Overall, the ingredients were great because they were extremely fresh. But I prefer my sushi in smaller portions. The rice was packed a little too densly as well. Oujousushi scores points for really friendly staff and service, but loses some points for being a little pricey (our bill came to 15,600 yen including sake).

Oujousushi
5-6 Shinkawamachi
Hakodate City, Hokkaido
TEL: 0138-22-3079
closed Thursdays

Umamiporn: California Sun-kissed Picturelog

yoko — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:43:00 +0000

I took a much-needed trip back home to California in May for two weeks. I risked contracting the swine flu to indulge in my second passion after eating – photography with my grandma’s 1970s Nikon EM film camera.
I love taking photos of food in Tokyo, but there’s something about the California sun that saturates food with perfect lighting.

Paella by Kazuko Hayama (my mom) in Cupertino, CA

Sushi by Sushikuni in Cupertino, CA

Harley Farms Goat Cheese in Pescadero, CA

Burger by Frankie’s Bohemian Cafe in San Francisco, CA

Plain yogurt with Oreo cookies (left) and plain yogurt with blueberries (right) by Yogurt Harmony in Berkeley, CA

American Sushi at Rainbow Roll Sushi, Tokyo

yoko — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:40:00 +0000

In an ultra-postmodern city such as Tokyo, where sign and meaning are often so far gone from each other, it seems fitting that a cuisine such as American Sushi finds its way “back.”

Many visitors from America who come to Japan are often surprised to find out that the sushi rolls we see in the deli sections of American supermarkets are non-existent in Japan. In fact, rolls such as Philadelphia, spicy tuna and caterpillar might as well be alien food to the Japanese.

This said alien American sushi is served up at Rainbow Roll Sushi in Azabu-juban, Tokyo’s expat central. The theme of the restaurant is exotic fusion, with a drop of Beetlejuice. A dim inteiror makes guests feel sophisticated and daring in their dining choices.

The food gets quite a high mark in my book. Think California rolls with the tenderest avocado, crab straight from Tsukiji, firm seawead that actually smells like seaweed and just a smear of rice. Because my usual complaint when eating sushi in America is their tendency to pack too much rice, Rainbow Roll Sushi’s minimal rice usage is perfect for bringing out the freshness of the ingredients. This is American Sushi using the best ingredients Tokyo has to offer. If the sushi packs we get in the deli section of Safeway are dressed for a picnic in the park, the rolls offered at Rainbow Roll Sushi are dressed up for the ball.

Beef Tataki

Tsukune with Quail Egg

Soft Shell Crab Roll

California Roll

Caterpillar Roll

Maguro and Avocado Tower

Sesame Ice Cream

Rainbow Roll Sushi
2nd floor Monte Plaza
1-10-3 Azabu-juban Minato-ku
Tokyo, JAPAN

Tachigui: Eating Whilst Standing

yoko — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Eating while walking, talking, driving, computing and making love. Most Americans have done many or all of these things. Hopefully not simultaneously. Eating while standing in one place, however, is something that Americans don’t do on a regular basis… yet.

Enter Tokyo, and the prevalence of stand-up dining, or tachigui. Step off most any train in the city and you are likely greeted with tachigui ramen and soba shops filled with salarymen scarfing down noodles in four minutes. Exit the subway station and choose from a stand-up drinking, sushi or yakitori bar. All of this led me to the following question: Why do Tokyoites embrace eating erectly so enthusiastically?

Here’s my take.

Population density. There’s simply no space.

With a population density almost one and a half times that of New York City, Tokyo is one big swarm of black hair. In fact, if you shot aerial video footage during the morning rush, I am sure many parts of the city would look like black carpet while you were dropping acid. Given the lack of space, a large percentage of Tokyoites must do a lot of things standing, including commuting, napping and eating.

Photo courtesy of Anders Arhoj

Fast food is served and eaten fast.

The sushi bar is to Tokyo as McDonald’s is to San Bernadino. During the Edo (former name of Tokyo) period, what we now dub as “sushi” was born out of the needs of urbanites. Prior to the nigiri form of sushi that we see most often today, sushi was commonly known to take the form of Osaka-based oshi-zushi (sushi pressed in a wooden box). The nigiri form still utilized the vinegared rice, which helps rice last longer and brings out the umami of raw fish. But contrary to oshi-zushi, nigiri was fast to prepare and customers could eat it with their hands while standing up, resulting in an incredibly fast turnover rate.* Cha-ching!

*source: Danran sushi chef

Depiction of Edo period sushi stand

Don’t eat while walking for you will spill.

It might just be my fault as Yoko, but if I could, I’d like to blame part of my slob-factor on my American upbringing. Observing my Japanese counterparts, I realized I drop way too much food. On more than one occasion, I have felt the need to defend myself with You never saw that fall out of my grubby hands and leave a trail as if I were Gretel or that No, I didn’t just eat 7 rice crackers and spill crumbs all over your tatami mat. I have consulted a few of my friends to ask them what the real beef was with Japanese people and walking while eating. Most have expressed simply that it’s rude to spill: on the ground, on yourself, and of course on others. And that’s when I finally understood their apprehension with eating and bipedal locomotion. Surely if you were walking around while eating, you would most likely spill onto one or all of those things. So if eating while walking is a no-no, eating while standing starts making a lot of sense.

Standing while eating in Tokyo has deep roots. Population, historical rhetoric and principles of etiquette are all embodied in this simple act. Who knows, what with America enjoying Segways and stand-up roller coasters, a tachigui trend may be right around the corner.

Ramen tachigui in Tsukiji

Rice bowl tachigui in Tsukiji

Izakaya tachigui in Shibuya

Tuna Rib (Nakaochi)

Caroline — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:57:00 +0000

Just before Christmas of 2007, Tyson and I went to Kanoyama for a holiday dinner. Having read about the restaurant in various online forums, we were interested in trying out a new sushi place… but mostly, we were looking forward to trying the bluefin tuna rib, or nakaochi.

We recently returned to Kanoyama, following its write-up in the Times as a good “recession” sushi option (along with Sushi Azabu, neither of which are “recessionary” by our standards, but oh well). We found the sashimi to be as fresh and delicious as the first time we went, but unfortunately there was no nakaochi to be found on the menu.

The Kanoyama site disclaims that nakaochi is only available when the restaurant has purchased a “good, in-season Blue Fin tuna”, so in case anyone reading has gone to the restaurant and missed out on this one-of-a-kind culinary experience, we decided a dedicated post was in order.

Above are the nakaochi photos taken in December 2007. In contrast to everything else at Kanoyama, the nakaochi is presented rather modestly. The rib—which looked more like meat than fish to me initially—simply sits on a white plate adorned with a small yellow flower. But the rib itself is rather impressive to look at: the bright red tuna meat clinging to the rib, and the dark marrow surrounding the backbone are pretty appetizing.

The way to go about eating it is to scoop out (a spoon works by far the best, although we tried chopsticks as well) the raw fish from the grooves in the ribs. The flesh tends to peel up in wide, thin ribbons, with leftover crumbles scattering about or clinging to the bone. The meat had a full flavor even though it was so delicate, and the texture was almost silky… all the more appreciated since you had to work for a spoonful.

Once you’ve scraped off as much meat as possible, the server takes the bones away, grills them, and then returns them to your table with a ponzu dipping sauce. There’s not too much left to eat at this point, but the joy in getting a second chance to re-eat the dish (grilled and hot, nonetheless!) is well worth it. You can get a meaty taste from the grilled bones and you can try to pick off any remaining scraps of tuna meat. It might not really amount to too much, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience nonetheless.

To conclude, a blurry photo of the sushi and sashimi we enjoyed when the tuna rib was unavailable.

Anago: The Underdog Eel

kayoko — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 01:51:00 +0000

For some reason, anago (saltwater eel) is not so popular in the States- its freshwater sister, Unagi (freshwater eel) just took the limelight and ran with it. Perhaps it’s because anago is not as buttery, I’m not sure… poor anago, it’s the underdog eel. But I’m telling you folks, anago is BETTER! It’s just delicious and should not be overlooked at the sushi bar.

My sushi chef father, Kuni, just got an order of anago flown in from Tsukiji the other day and I tagged along as he prepared it. That’s the thing about anago- unlike unagi, which comes preseasoned and ready to go in convenient packets, chefs actually make anago from scratch.

I’m not gonna lie… eels are slimy and they give me the eeby-jeebies just looking at them.

But deal with it.

Wash and scrub eel clean.

Put in a concoction of 2 parts sake, 1 part soy sauce, 1 part sugar and 1 part water.

Add drop lid or foil and bring to a boil.

When you can snap the anago in half with a chopstick, you know it’s ready (about 20 minutes).

Done- look at how much liquid the anago soaked up!

Here Kuni is saying, “You must lay them out flat while it’s still hot or else the form gets all out of whack.”

Et voila!

It’s a little boney, but it’s flaky and just crumbles in your mouth. Plus, you can actually taste the fish, whereas unagi tends to be overly saucy and fatty (which of course is meritous in its own right).

Very rarely will you find anago available in local fish markets, Asian markets or Chinatown. Even if it were though, I would just skip all the hassle and just let your favorite sushi chef do all the dirty work! Enjoy!

Half-Price Sashimi (Wasabi Faux Pas)

yoko — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:21:00 +0000

Although my stomach was feeling weird, it didn’t stop me from my Friday night Half-Price Sushi ritual.

I got to the store around 20:00, which is well after the markdown at 19:00. But there were still some varieties of sushi left. Something drew me to the beautiful cubes of maguro. Mmm. Marked down from 580 yen, these jewels of succulence cost me only 290 yen.

(I flipped the images this time.)

The color was not blinding or artificially bright red and there was a good amount of texture to the tuna meat itself.

One thing that has changed since I moved to Japan, is how I eat my sushi and sashimi. I do not mix my wasabi in my soy sauce. Instead, I dab some on the side of the soy sauce plate or directly on top of the fish meat and then dip it into the soy sauce (like above picture).

I would get sideways glances from people when I would do the mixing thing. I don’t know if it’s just a Tokyo thing, but it seems to be a faux pas. What’s everyone’s take on this?

An Umami Mart First: HOSPITAL FOOD

Thomas Parke D'Invilliers — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:57:00 +0000

As my introductory post, I would like to tread upon virgin Umami Mart territory… DUN DUN DUN… *HOSPITAL FOOD*!

Perhaps it doesn’t have the allure of airplane foodstuffs, but hospital food is interesting in a way that one day you might have to visit your grammy there or maybe you end up there after partying too hard. However, the majority of you won’t end up in a hospital, but I’d thought it’d be nice to show you what you’re privy to at a standard hospital cafeteria.

In my profession, the lucky ones get free food or some sort of stipend to splurge on food in the hospital cafeteria. This makes my stomach and my wallet happy. What’s funny about the hospital cafeteria food is that it is basically the same food that inpatients get, only the latter get to pick from a menu and have their meals delivered to the bedside. My food stipend does not cover that.

Most hospital cafeterias (and I have sampled many) are pretty standard. Think *hot lunch* and *elementary school*, surly cafeteria workers, a bunch of people in white coats, scrubs, and various stages of undress in front of the salad bar.

The basic components of the hospital cafeteria are: the heart attack corner (featuring a range of things from make-your-own pizzas to everything deep fried), a sad salad bar that charges by the pound, a burger-hot dog-fries area, a “hot lunch” area with things like rice pilaf and mashed potatoes along with some sort of salisbury steak or dry turkey and green beans, the dessert bar which can range from an ice cream machine with a table of add-your-own-toppings to a freezer case to pick up your frozen treats, to the individual pie slices and cookies the size of your face.

What I am saving for last is, of course, THE LUNCH SPECIAL. The lunch special is very hit or miss. I have seen everything from gyros to nachos, some sort of Chinese lo mein or chow mein, to buffalo chicken salads, quesadillas, and breakfast foods that can pass for dinner (like huge omelets). The problem with these lunch specials is that there are at tops 2 of those surly cafeteria workers making each special by hand, Chipotle-style, out of bins of the separate ingredients. One can only imagine the congestion caused by this torrid affair.

My diet when I’m at a hospital is quite erratic. With the addition of free food, my meals become something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. I do not normally bring a camera into any hospital premises, and therefore the scope of these photos is quite limited, however, illustrative of what you might see.

Breakfast. Note the key component of a caffeine-containing beverage. The obligatory “healthy” component being the strawberry yogurt that tastes too much like fake sugar. Finally a breakfast plate.

The close-up is at the beginning of the post, and one can clearly see the clumpy eggs which are sometimes mashed up with cheese (I believe these were, as well), making a chunky, tasteless mess, hence copious amounts of salt, pepper, and yes, ketchup. The sausage patties at the side are actually the turkey sausage. The normal sausage tastes the same anywhere you go, a cross between Jimmy Dean and Bob Evans and just taking a bite out of a real live pig. I went with the turkey to see what it was like, and realized there was a reason the bin was still full of the patties in mid-morning…

Sample lunch. Note again, the obligatory caffeinated beverage. The main course is a 6-piece of “Alaskan roll” that is brought in through contracts with local Chinese restaurants.

It is a new trend among hospitals to include the most benign and inoffensive sushi choices to their menus. The taste is very mediocre, but free sushi is free sushi. Sadly, the “California Roll” is no doubt the most popular, because people seriously think that it is *real* sushi. And there is always a lot of wasabi thrown away because people cannot handle the heat.

Moving along, the side dish is a portion of large breaded onion rings. The one thing hospitals can cook is fried. Anything fried is no doubt good. Particularly with two kinds of sauce: honey mustard and BBQ.

Notice the perfectly fried texture of these onion rings. I could wax poetic about these things forever. It’s like going to a carnival…a carnival that is prepared for my pending myocardial infarction.

And of course, dessert. Hospitals also never go wrong with dessert, most likely because of their contracts with local bakeries and/or simply getting premade mixes and frozen things from Sam’s Club and Costco.

One can never go wrong with a Tollhouse ice cream sandwich and it’s almost-500 calories. It almost makes up for the hours of rounding and sleep deprivation that lies ahead.