Sushi

After reading The Zen of Fish for three days, I decided to eat some sushi! We went to Totero, a sushi bar near campus (named for the Miazaki movie). Len ordered the deluxe platter. I ordered a simple cucumber roll, a seaweed salad, and two individual pieces of sushi, later followed by a spider roll. The book described how custom-made sushi and rolls contain rice that's still warm: that was the case with my delicious toro and salmon roe sushi. It was fun knowing the history of these two types of sushi.

I decided to try doing what the book said: eat a whole piece of sushi in one bite rather than eating a little at a time. It was too big for me. Maybe they've adapted the size to accommodate the American habit of eating. I also tried keeping the wasabi and soy sauce separate to avoid weakening the blast of wasabi flavor. It works: I almost choked when I overdipped into the wasabi. However, I didn't feel like picking up each piece of sushi with my fingers: I used the chopsticks, as the chefs quoted in the book did not recommend.

California rolls and all the other kinds of rolls were invented in the US. According to the book, rolls often include ingredients selected to please American taste. Totero has a Hawaiian roll that includes pineapple! In Japan, sushi bars in edgy places like Tokyo have adopted these Americanized versions of their native food. In Kyoto, some sushi bars still serve their own style, served in a box and less sweet, unlike the Tokyo style sushi that's mainly known outside Japan. I'll have to check my photos of the sushi we ate years ago in Kyoto.

Here's the sushi bar at Totero. Some time, I'll sit at the counter and watch the action. Tonight we sat at a table, despite all my reading about how one should get the full experience of seeing the chefs at work.