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how to avoid bad sushi

I am usually against people who use the “-san” honorrific on themselves, but Eugene Ciurana’s Sushi Eating HOWTO is full of good tips:
Warning signs that you probably won't get good sushi
  1. The fish and other seafood are not on display at the sushi bar
  2. The fish and other seafood on display look dry
  3. The sushi chef or (worse) a food server wants to take your order for all sushi items at once
  4. The sushi chef doesn't give you a chance to order "one or two pieces at a time", Japanese style
  5. The restaurant advertises "all you can eat sushi" for a fixed price
  6. The menu items are not listed in Japanese followed by a translation; they appear only in your native language
  7. The menu consists mostly of rolled sushi with names like California Roll or Oriental Delight
  8. More than half of the available ingredients are cooked
  9. The sushi chef hasn't the vaguest idea of what you're talking about if you ask for kazunoko, shiso, inago, chirashi, or yama gobo
  10. The morsels of fish atop nigiri pieces are so large that you can barely see the rice underneath (believe it or not, some people think that the sushi place is good because you get big pieces of fish). Big pieces of fish are good as long as the fish quality is good.
  11. The sushi rice is flavorless; sushi rice must have a delicate aroma and flavor
  12. The restaurant is part of a chain or franchise
If four or more of the conditions above are met, leave the place immediately and head to a different restaurant.

Comments

  1. Yokota Fritz2/05/2006 3:25 PM

    Well.... I guess. I grew up in Japan and know good sushi. I've had plenty of bad sushi here in the States as well. Experienced "all you can eat" and won't do it again, franchise sushi also, and huge slabs of dead fish too.

    The translation thing I don't think is a good indicator, though I agree that sushi chefs who don't know the nihongo are a bad sign. There are lots of Malaysian and Korean sushi chefs where I live which is kind of weird.

    ReplyDelete
  2. bwana2/06/2006 9:29 AM

    I agree that the translation-only menu is not necessarily a dead giveaway, and I've had decent sushi from places whose waitstaff couldn't parse what I was ordering from the genuine name of the sushi as well. However, overall the guide is a fairly concise and accurate way for most people to avoid a Bad Sushi Experience.

    How'd you find this blog? Japan Ring?

    ReplyDelete
  3. bwana2/06/2006 9:30 AM

    I should also add that I don't think anything other than practice and schooling leads to a good ita-san, so I'm not particularly stuck on Japanese nationality ita-sans as "the only way to go;" anyone can do it with enough time and drive.

    ReplyDelete

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