1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (205 page)

When all goes right, which is usually dictated to some degree by price, such a meal delivers the delectable and unparalleled experience of cool fish, sweet and tangy rice, salty soy sauce, and the spark of wasabi, all in one bite—which is the only way to eat a piece of sushi: No nibbling allowed. Sake or tea are the typical accompaniments, but a scotch and soda can lend a nicely astringent note.

Where:
In Tokyo
, Turuhachi, tel 81/3-3262-9665; Daiwa Sushi, tel 81/3-3547-6807; Sushi-Jiro, tel 81/3-3535-3600,
sushi-jiro.jp
;
in New York
, Masa and Bar Masa, tel 212-823-9800,
masanyc.com
; Hatsuhana at two locations,
hatsuhana.com
; Sushi Yasuda, tel 212-972-1001,
sushiyasuda.com
;
in New York, Los Angeles, and Honolulu
, Sushi Sasabune,
sasabunenyc.com
;
in Washington, DC
, Sushi Taro, tel 202-462-8999,
sushitaro.com
;
in Atlanta
, Taka Sushi, tel 404-869-2802,
takasushiatlanta.com
;
in Houston
, Kata Robata, tel 713-526-8858,
katarobata.com
; Uptown Sushi, tel 713-871-1200,
uptown-sushi.com
;
in Los Angeles
, Nozawa Bar, tel 424-216-6158,
nozawabar.com
.
Mail order:
for utensils,
sushinow.com
;
asiangrocer.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Sushi Secrets
by Kazuko Masui and Chihiro Masui (2004);
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
by Shizuo Tsuji (2012);
A Taste of Japan
by Donald Richie (1993);
sushimaster.com
;
sushiencyclopedia.com
;
foodandwine.com
(search how to make sushi with morimoto);
foodnetwork.com
(search master sushi rice);
gourmet.com
(search great tips for homemade sushi rolls). For sushi-making courses,
in New York and environs
, Sushi by Simon, tel 212-340-1339,
sushibysimon.com
;
in San Francisco
, Breakthrough Sushi, tel 415-533-1755,
breakthroughsushi.com
; Tokyo Sushi Academy, tel 81/3-2260-1755,
sushischool.jp
;
in Kamloops, Canada
, Kamloops Japanese Canadian Association, tel 250-376-9629,
kjca.ca
.
Tip:
To get deep into the world of sushi at the hands of a master, watch the documentary
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
, directed by David Gelb (2012).

Just as aspiring Western chefs are judged by the strength of their omelet making, sushi connoisseurs believe that you can tell how good the chef is by tasting his
tamagoyaki
—the moist and succulent strips of layered omelet served atop rice as
nigiri
(hand-pressed) sushi. What they’re looking for is a delicately sweet flavor and a soft texture that is neither spongy nor wet, neither dry nor browned, but instead perfectly light, airy, and almost soufflélike, a bite-size morsel full of delightful nuance. If that sounds unfamiliar, you may never have experienced real, freshly made tamago. For nowadays, many restaurants, both in America and abroad, buy big blocks of frozen premade tamago from wholesale suppliers, with predictable results.

To achieve a proper tamagoyaki, a sushi chef must be nimble, quick, and painstaking as he follows a series of time-honored steps, using the special square pan called
tamagoyakinabe
to ensure that the finished product has even edges and a uniform thickness. First the eggs are beaten with dashi (the typical Japanese stock base), sake, or mirin (a sweet rice wine), a pinch of sugar, and a splash of soy sauce. The pan is ever so lightly slicked with oil and heated, and the egg mixture is poured in. As it pan-grills, the chef uses chopsticks to gently fold the omelet over onto itself until it becomes a long, rectangular block and the layers have completely melded together. After the omelet is cooked, but before it cools, it is gently pressed in a bamboo mat to set its dense texture and its shape. Cut into rectangles, it is ready to be placed atop the mounds of sushi rice.

The word
tamago
actually means “egg” in Japanese, and tamago comes in many forms: quail eggs are
uzura no tamago
;
onsen tamago
is literally “hot spring cooked egg” and refers to an egg poached slowly in low-temperature water;
yude tamago
is a hard-cooked egg;
hanjuku tamago
is soft-boiled. But it’s only the tamagoyaki omelet that is the true test of a master’s skill—so much so that legends abound about sushi masters who don’t take phone calls or allow visitors into the kitchen while they’re making tamago.

Where:
In New York, Sydney, and Toronto
, Momofuku restaurants,
momofuku.com
;
in New York
, Hatsuhana at two locations,
hatsuhana.com
.
Further information and recipes:
Washoku
by Elizabeth Andoh (2005);
momofukufor2.com
(search tamago-yaki recipe);
epicurious.com
(search tamago sushi; egg sushi; omelet sushi).

The perfection of tempura is a form of art.

With its clean, unmarred flavors and minimalistic approach to ingredients, Japanese food tends toward simplicity and lightness. That’s true even when it comes to the deep-fried specialty of tempura, the famously light-as-air seafood and vegetable bites that are common to practically every corner of Japan. To achieve what might be the world’s perfect fry, tempura chefs pay particular attention to the kinds of cooking oils they choose. Most favor some combination of sesame oil, which lends a nutty flavor, and vegetable oil, although various exotic choices are employed sometimes, too, especially fragrant, light camellia oil. The chefs lean toward choice fillings with clean flavors. The strong inherent flavors of chicken, pork, and beef are generally believed to overwhelm the batter—more favorable are shrimp, the most common tempura ingredient; a range of fish and seafood such as scallops, squid, tiny crabs,
kisu
(a small white-fleshed fish),
anago
(saltwater eel); and vegetables including snow peas, shiitake mushrooms, asparagus, squash, onion, and Japanese eggplant.

But the batter is where tempura truly distinguishes itself, with the secret to its lightness lying not so much in the ingredients (an unsurprising mix of flour, egg, and water) as in their treatment. The water must be iced, and the batter must remain discernibly lumpy, folded together with a brief whisking of a fork or chopsticks. This last is what prevents gluten from forming and creating a heavy, bready coating. All that remains for the fillings is a dredging in flour, a dip in the batter, and a very brief plunge into the deep-fryer for tempura perfection to emerge, the succulent ingredients kept moist and flavorful by their protective coating and the quickness of the fry.

In direct contrast to the sheer, lacy quality of the cleanly fried foods, the dish itself has murky origins. A commonly held theory is that the Jesuit missionaries who came to Japan from Portugal in the sixteenth century were the inspiration. Evidence lies in the Latin term
quattuor tempora
(four times)—a reference to the four weeks in the traditional Catholic calendar containing “ember days,” on which no meat was to be eaten. On these days, observant Portuguese generally ate vegetable and seafood fritters.

Some modern tempura chefs, however, contend that the technique of deep-frying batter-dipped foods was introduced to Japan by the Chinese less than three hundred years
ago and was initially embraced by mountain-dwelling Zen monks who wished to make their vegetarian diet more palatable.

Regardless of when it first appeared, tempura flourished into an iconic dish that is presented a variety of ways: on its own; on top of a bowl of rice, along with a concentrated version of
tentsuyu
sauce made of kombu (dried sea kelp),
katsuobushi
(dried, smoked bonito flakes), mirin (sweet rice wine), and soy sauce; paired with soba and udon noodles; and even as a filler in sushi rolls.

Everyone agrees on the best way to eat it: right at the counter, one piece at a time, each fresh and hot from the fryer.

Where:
In Tokyo
, Ten-Ichi, tel 81/3-3571-1949,
tenichi.co.jp
;
in New York
, Morimoto, tel 212-989-8883,
morimotonyc.com
;
in Los Angeles
, Sawtelle Tempura House, tel 310-479-5989.
Further information and recipes:
Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art
by Shizuo Tsuji (2012);
cookstr.com
(search vegetable tempura);
foodandwine.com
(search morimotos shrimp tempura with miso mayonnaise).

A fish auction in Tokyo.

Time was when food-and adventure-loving tourists donned raincoats and rubber boots and slunk out of hotels at 4:30 in the morning to take in Tsukiji—fondly pronounced
skiji
—the world’s most stupendous wholesale fish market and, to many minds, Tokyo’s most spectacular sight. Tourists are now barred until after 9:00 a.m., but what they enter is still truly Fish City, a series of enormous covered halls on the banks of the Sumida River (although the market is being relocated to its own island in advance of the 2020 Olympics), illuminated by bare lightbulbs and truck headlights in the morning mists. Everywhere you turn there are crates and dollies amid a pervasive wetness, hence the raincoats and rubber boots to protect against the constant spray of hoses. Market stalls crackle with activity and are stacked with every sort of sea creature you can imagine, and probably some you can’t—spiny red crabs and spiny lobsters, grassy knobs of sea urchins, coral reefs of red salmon roe, tumbling mounds of ink-purple octopuses, black-and-white-striped tiger fish, silver-leafed whitebait, and gizzard shad covered in gilded silver scales.

The main event is the tuna hall and the auction that takes place there daily at about 5:00 a.m., for which special passes must be obtained. As much as 191 tons of tuna may be sold there daily, an especially astonishing sum when you realize that this occurs six days a week at Tsukiji alone. Enormous whole tuna, frosty white if frozen or silver-blue if fresh, are laid out in seemingly endless rows looking like fighter planes on an airstrip, their tails cut off so that the amount of prized fat can be ascertained. Buyers with flashlights closely examine the fish, deciding which to bid on, which they do with hand signals that make the process look like a big, crowded game of rock-paper-scissors.

It is nearly impossible not to start craving some sparkling fresh sushi after a visit to Tsukiji. Fortunately, it is a desire easily satisfied at one of the small sushi restaurants within the market, particularly Daiwa and Sushi Bun. Both dispense no-frills sushi to hungry market workers and tourists for about half the price of what the
same items would cost in Tokyo’s center. On particularly good days, the menu might include coral twists of
akagai
(ark clam), paper-thin slices of nicely chewy
awabi
(abalone),
torigai
(cockles), and the seductive morsel that is
shako
, which resembles a cross between a crab and a shrimp and is usually briefly boiled before serving. You can be sure that whatever is on the menu, however exotic or familiar, will be surpassingly fresh—and a most memorable breakfast.

Where:
5-2-1 Tsukiji, Chuo, tel 81/3-3542-1111,
tsukiji.or.jp/english
; Daiwa Sushi, tel 81/3-3547-6807, and Sushi Bun restaurant, tel 81/3-3541-3860, are both on block 5-2-1 in the market.
When:
Open every day except Sunday and holidays from 5 a.m. to 2 p.m., from 9 a.m. for visitors.
Further information:
japan-guide.com
(search tsukiji).