It took 72 hours and 3 and a half minutes of footage, but it’s finished and up on YouTube!
Metropolitan Sushi (MetroSushi) presents the happiest video about Tuna on the web.
Okay, it looks like amateur compared to the countless videos out there, but in the Happy Tuna Video, I was able to combine a few things I like very much: tuna photography, tuna videos, and tunes by the Rubettes.
(Click here for the hi-definition version)
Hopefully the first of many more tribute videos!
Hope you like it!
Maguro nigiri is probably one of the most common sushi you’ll find anywhere. Maguro, or Tuna, is a fish with red meat and grows to pretty impressive sizes, such as the record breaking lunker caught a few months back.
A video of me making some maguro sushi is below:
I picked maguro because it was brought over fresh from the Atlantic, of which I don’t have any memory of eating let alone preparing. It handled just like any other maguro, but the taste was pretty impressive for being shipped half way across the world.
You might notice the cut pieces of Aji (horse mackerel) sitting next to the plate of maguro. That was caught in Nagasaki, and definitely one of the tastiest local fishes Japan has to offer — that is, the icebox the fish was sold out of was labeled “Nagasaki”… No, I’m not being overly suspicious. The price was right, and Aji is a fish Nagasaki is known to supply pretty well. It was about a dollar for each fish, which is neither too cheap or too expensive (some go for much more).
You know that sleepy feeling you get after eating a big turkey dinner? It’s not just because you ate too much (but might be a contributing factor), but thanks to a natural substance called Tryptophan, which is found in many foods including turkey, nuts, and legumes.
Tryptophan, specifically L-Tryptophan, is one of the essential amino acids and aids in the body’s production of serotonin (for healthy sleep). Find out more about why it makes you so drowsy on Wikipedia.
After a little more research, I found that tuna, scallops, salmon, sardines and halibut also contain Tryptophan. I wonder how many pieces of maguro, hotate, sake, iwashi and ohyo (karei) sushi it would take to put you under? But, does anyone know if it matters that the fish is raw when eaten?
Well, there is only one way to find out. The next chance I get, I’ll focus on eating mostly sushi made from fish species that I know to contain L-Tryptophan — I’ll skip the beer.
If anyone knows more, I’d be happy to hear about your experiences! I’ll follow up with my own in a later post down the line!
Japanese love their tuna!
Earlier this week, it was reported that a gigantic bluefin tuna was auctioned at Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo for a record 32.49 million yen (or 396K US smackers)!
Without stealing too much more from the original article, I’d like to add that one of the two sushi businesses that bought up the 754-lb maguro was Kyubey, which was named as CNN’s 2010 Tokyo’s Best Eats.
Is this a profitable move by Kyubey (and its fellow bidder, Itamae of Hong Kong), or is it more about prestige?
Buying up half of that monstrous fish could potentially pay off big time if the fellows at Kyubey do their math right and if the demand is there.
On the other hand, it could have been a publicity move to attract more attention to Kyubey, which already enjoys success as a popular Ginza sushi shop. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it appear on a wacky Japanese variety show on TV. Another reason why it might have been more about fame rather than fortune, is that a sushi shop that only sells ohtoro sushi is a soon-to-be broke sushi shop — ohtoro and other pricey sushi items cost big to procure and take more time to sell than other cheaper and more frequently consumed items (that sell quickly). Nonetheless, I feel it was smart to do so as this story will (has already) circulate among sushi lovers both in Japan and outside, attracting customers new and old.
Spun up a quick image showing just where akami, chutoro and ohtoro are cut from a Bluefin Tuna.
Akami is what many sushi lovers outside of Japan know as “maguro” or simply tuna. Not so expensive and is used in a variety of non-sushi dishes.
Chutoro is the fattier variant of akami, with noticeably lighter color (light red to pink). Often consumed as sashimi (sliced raw fish) as well as sushi.
Ohtoro is the fattiest part of the tuna with a clearly marbled appearance (similar to how Kobe beef and other domestic steaks are marbled in fat) and allegedly can only be taken from the fattiest bellies of Kuromaguro and Minamimaguro Tunas. Being expensive and sweet, sushi shops normally don’t stock a lot of Toro or Ohtoro since it doesn’t pay off as well as cheaper-to-procure high-selling fish like kohada, buri, sake, etc. Sushi eaters who start with bland sushi and end with sweet or strong tasting sushi will finish their meal with ohtoro, so economics tell sushi chefs not to procure it in high volumes.
In the diagram below, assume it is of a Kuromaguro which has a thick layer of fatty flesh between its akami and chutoro innards and the ocean (separated by the white dotted line). In real life however, the appearance of these three representative cuts of tuna can be very different depending on the type of tuna they come from – for example, if I see a piece of tuna sashimi labeled chutoro with white fatty fibrous stripes, I can pretty much tell it is not a Kuromaguro a.k.a. Honmaguro (Pacific Bluefin Tuna) but possibly a Mebachi “”Bigeye Tuna or Kihada “Yellowfin” Tuna. Of course, one could always ask the seller or look at the label…
Sometimes you may hear use of the term “Toro” in general (with the leading “Oh” dropped). This refers to fatty maguro meat with the gelatin-like sinews that are rich in collagen. Toro is available in most sushi shops, grocery stores and fish markets.
But, the popularity of tuna cannot be disputed as akami and chu-toro are often included among the Japanese’ favorite sushi (let’s assume they are used in several sushi variants including tekka-maki, negitoro-maki, etc).
Author’s note: “Chiai” is the darker rather bloody meat that you don’t normally see served. The akami referred to in the image above is pretty dark but please don’t think I forgot about chiai.
Was in Shinagawa, Tokyo recently and had a hankerin’ for sushi but as I’ve never known Shinagawa as being famous for sushi I thought I was in for a small trek to some place more familiar and closer to home.
That was when I came across Ushio, a sushi bar located just inside the mouth of Shinagawa Station’s eastward gate. It was easily noticeable from its nicely designed shop entrance and cheap lunch menu, so I decided to stop in for a bite.
Ushio is a tachizushi bar in which customers are made to stand while ordering and eating. Back in Fukuoka where I used to live, I had an experience with another tachizushi bar and really liked it. Tachizushi bars in Japan aren’t really that much different from other sushi restaurants. Ushio was clean, somewhat small, adorned with wood and beer posters and the help was quite polite and cheerful. However, it wasn’t until I stood at the counter that I noticed what made Ushio unique and made me regret eating there.
Ushio has a pretty extensive menu with lots of variety of nigiri but not much more than that – they do have kaisendon and some makimono (wrapped sushi). However, Ushio’s real uniqueness is its ordering system. Instead of calling out to the chefs behind the bar or having a hostess write down your orders, there are” coins” with menu items printed on them. The coins (and most things in the restaurant) are written in Japanese and English, (which I thought was pretty neat) and when ordering, you pick up the coin with the sushi you want and place it in a little white dish upon the counter. The chef will acknowledge your order and proceed to make the sushi fresh for you. The cheapest coins were 90 yen while the most expensive (non-lunch set) coins were 750 yen. Mind you, each coin is 1 piece, not 1 plate (of two pieces) you might be used to at kaitenzushi or some sushi restaurants. The coins stay in your coin dish until you’re ready to leave. This also helps you to remember what you ordered and how much you’re paying in case you get started on a serious sushi binge.
Unfortunately, my coin dish wasn’t so full – I only used one coin during my visit. It wasn’t because I ordered a Nigiri Set or “Sushi lunch plate” which required only the one specially marked coin, but it was because I thought the sushi itself wasn’t on par with what I have come to expect as a sushi lover. Believe me, if I thought otherwise, I’d have filled my dish with at least a couple more coins.
First things first, the sushi rice was very plain tasting and seemed to come straight from an electric rice cooker. It didn’t have that distinct faintly sour-sweet fragrance or other qualities that struck me as anything but the Japanese equivalent of “Minute Rice”. Also, while each piece of sushi on my platter was molded with care and looked picture perfect prior to being anywhere near my mouth, it would take even longer to reach it as almost every piece was molded very loosely and fell apart soon after my chopsticks grasped them. A couple times, half the rice of one piece of sushi fell into my soy sauce with dozens of individual rice grains floating about like shipwrecked sailors. I’ve been eating sushi a long time and this had to be one of the most frustrating times I’ve had – with or without chopsticks. The businessmen next to me also seemed to have a hard time keeping their sushi together and soon I was done playing “man overboard” and just used my hands (which didn’t help that much). So the rice wasn’t that good, and the sushi were fragile – yeah, it happens sometimes you might say, but this was getting ridiculous at Ushio. Let’s move on to the fish.
Laid out before me was a 13-piece sushi lunch platter that had:
I ate each piece with care and anticipation hoping that Ushio would show me something in substance to match its unique and customer friendly menus coins. Rice having already been explained above, was half the problem that made me a dissatisfied customer. The other half was that no piece of sushi on my platter tasted fresh nor had that much taste at all. I at least expected the salmon to retain its unique fatty attributes but it did not come through – all the fish used was plain and uninteresting. Of course, each sushi had its own texture, but that was about it. Nothing laudable in relation to the ingredients used. Wait, the kohada was actually quite good, but that’s because I had never had it before and my taste buds were probably put on red alert for the incoming of a strange fish. IMHO, Ushio missed the mark with its most important asset, its sushi.
I scarfed up my sushi one by one, finished my tea and miso soup, paid and left. From placing my order to stepping out the door it was about 25 minutes, which I thought was good timing even though it was in the middle of lunchtime. It could very well be that it’s such an unpopular place that only curious poor saps like me eat there – but, Ushio has been there for about 2 years (according to the hostess) so they must get a fair amount of business at other peak times (evening quittin’ time, weekends, etc.) It might be a totally different scene and level of quality that I didn’t have the good fortune to experience.
While I wouldn’t recommend this place for those who already like sushi, as a “practice” place, it might serve you well. The reason being, you order by the piece and the cheapest pieces go for 90 yen, which is pretty darn good – if you are still experimenting with eating sushi, you might not want to do it at an expensive place downtown – so it won’t cost you too much at Ushio for being a tad adventurous.
Below is a final photo of the menu-poster they used to advertise their sushi lunch sets.
Ushi sushi bar menu
