A Local Sushi Shop in Niigata

[Peter Green]

What does "Taisho" mean?

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Isn't Taisho "captain", as in a commander of men?

[prasantrin]

I had this stupid video in mind when I wrote it.  "Taisho" means general, boss, and so on.

Warning:  Don't believe anything in that stupid video, which is linked to a number of times here on eGullet!!

I love that video! I think it's hilarious! My Japanese friends and I watched it at work, and we got into a bit of trouble for laughing so much. Most people who know anything about Japan (and sushi) don't take it seriously. But I can imagine there are some rubes out there who don't know any better.

Kuitan calls the chef "Oyakata" (親方) in this episode.

I call this particular chef "Goshujin" because his sushi shop is family-run, and his wife is always there.  His mother joins them at dinnertime.

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OK. Next time I go, I'll call him "Goshujin" since both he and his wife are there. Coming from a woman, though, wouldn't that be like my calling him my husband? Maybe I'll call him "Oyakata". Seems a bit safer.

Edited November 9, 2007 by prasantrin (log)

[Hiroyuki]

Peter Green, taisho does have a number of meanings. Captain is just one of them.

As a native Japanese, when I hear the word taisho, I first associate it with the leader of a group of boys. Unfortunately, such taisho are now disappearing.

prasantrin, don't worry. A native female Japanese never calls her husband Goshujin. When talking to someone else, she refers to him as (watashino = my) shujin (without go-), danna, etc., etc. Go- is a suffix as in go-han (rice).

Edited November 9, 2007 by Hiroyuki (log)

[Hiroyuki]

The sushi shop buys fish and other seafood from two sources. One is the local wholesale market, where a festival was held on November 11 this year, as I reported here, and the other one is Kisaburo Shoten (Japanese only), a family-run fishmonger located in Sado Island.

Now I want to have more fish and seafood caught in the Sea of Japan, especially those caught off Sado Island! The time is right! The winter is just around the corner!

[Hiroyuki]

Dinner 2 on Nov. 16 in the family-run traditional sushi shop at Urasa, Niigata.

1 adult (me) and 2 children

Hirame usuzukuri (thinly cut flounder)

700 yen

Delicious! The founder arrived at the sushi shop yesterday. It was chewier and less tasty yesterday, and today, it was less chewy and tastier.

The home-made ponzu was very mild.

Okosama (= Child) sushi set

840 yen

My son selected it. The gunkan maki had maguro instead of ikura. I didn't ask, but the chef kindly replaced it with maguro and later informed us.

Ikura don (salmon roe bowl)

1,890 yen

My daughter selected it. She likes ikura.

Okoze kara-age (deep-fried stonefish)

800 yen

Crispy and tasty. The freshly made kara-age tasted really good.

Honjitsu no nigiri (today's nigiri)

1,300 yen

Left to right:

Mebachi maguro chu-toro (medium fatty bigeye tuna)

Tai (sea bream)

Aori ika (bigfin reef squid)

Shoyu zuke ikura (salmon roe marinated in soy sauce)

Aji (Japanese horse mackerel)

Nanban aka ama ebi

I was in heaven.

3 closeup photos:

Today's recommendations.

Sorry for kanji-illiterate people.

Sazae tsuboyaki (grilled horned turban shell)

400 yen

Can you see the flame? Nice and crunchy.

Kai sashimi, san-shu (seashell sashimi, three kinds)

1,200 yen

Left: Sazae (horned turban shell)

Right top: Awabi (abanone)

Right bottom: Bai gai (ivory shell)

2 closup photos:

I also ordered:

Left to right:

Hirame (flounder)

300 yen

Hotate (scallop)

200 yen

Okoze (stonefish)

300 yen

Anago (conger eel)

250 yen

Lastly, I ordered:

Kohada (gizzard shad)

150 yen

Notice the different presentation from the one shown upthread.

Buri (adult yellowtail)

200 yen

Tamago aka gyoku (egg)

100 yen

The bill came to 8,925 yen. All in all, an incredible dinner at an incredible price.

Forgot to post this photo:

Panna cotta for my two children

We also ordered one bottle of orange juice.

Edited November 17, 2007 by Hiroyuki (log)

[jean_genie]

Wow, I love the photos! Thanks Hiroyuki for sharing I recently moved from a fishing village in Noto-hanto (in Ishikawa Pref) and I already miss the super fresh and yummy sashimi and sushi from Nihonkai (Sea of Japan). I now live near Tsukiji in Tokyo, and while the sushi is pretty decent here, it really cannot compare to the seafood I ate during my short year in the Noto.

[prasantrin]

I don't remember it being mentioned before, but is there an "ideal" order to eating sushi? Like when you drink wines, you progress from whites to reds. When you eat sushi, should you go from white-fleshed fish to fattier fish? Where would the sweet-ish ones (like uni, hotate) fit in? Would they be eaten at the end of a meal?

[Hiroyuki]

Wow, I love the photos! Thanks Hiroyuki for sharing I recently moved from a fishing village in Noto-hanto (in Ishikawa Pref) and I already miss the super fresh and yummy sashimi and sushi from Nihonkai (Sea of Japan). I now live near Tsukiji in Tokyo, and while the sushi is pretty decent here, it really cannot compare to the seafood I ate during my short year in the Noto.

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Wow, you live near Tsukiji?! I envy you!

As you know, all the best fish and seafood go to Tsukiji, where they are sold at high prices.

[Hiroyuki]

I don't remember it being mentioned before, but is there an "ideal" order to eating sushi?  Like when you drink wines, you progress from whites to reds.  When you eat sushi, should you go from white-fleshed fish to fattier fish?  Where would the sweet-ish ones (like uni, hotate) fit in?  Would they be eaten at the end of a meal?

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Ask a sushi snob , and he or she will tell you everything you need to know. For example, he will tell you to start with shiromi and end with tamago (gyoku). Eat gari or drink green tea between pieces of sushi to kind of "reset" your tongue. Personally, I don't believe what sushi snobs say. I want to be flexible in deciding the order, and above all, I just want to enjoy eating sushi and I hope I can learn as much as I can about fish (particularly white fish) and other seafood caught in the Sea of Japan from the chef.

[jean_genie]

Wow, you live near Tsukiji?!   I envy you!

As you know, all the best fish and seafood go to Tsukiji, where they are sold at high prices.

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We live about 20mins walk from Tsukiji. And it's a good thing too, since we've been pretty dissapointed with sushi we've had outside of Tsukiji around Tokyo. But I feel that the seafood cannot compare with the super fresh ones from the west side of Japan.

[Hiroyuki]

Thanks jean_genie for your reply.

Although his shop is in a mountainous area of Niigata prefecture, the chef is very enthusiastic about offering fresh fish and seafood to his customers, and that's why he orders once or twice a week from a fish monger located in Sado Island, which is also family-run and is capable of offering fresh fish and seafood caught off Sado Island at affordable prices. But what is more important is the care the chef takes of his fish and seafood. He carefully wraps every fillet in plastic wrap before putting it in the showcase at the counter, as shown way upthread (on page 2). He doesn't pre-slices the fillet but slices it after he receives an order, as I mentioned earlier. He puts o-toro, chu-toro, and maguro in a storage somewhere behind the counter because they will discolor quickly if put in the showcase.

[Hiroyuki]

Dinner 3 for 1 adult (me) and 2 children, as usual.

Kawahagi usuzukuri (thin slices of filefish)

700 yen

I found the kawahagi less tasty than the hirame (left-eye flounder) shown upthread, but the special dipping sauce was very good, which contained kawahagi liver, soy sauce, grated ginger, and nikiri (mirin?).

Nikiri refers to mirin or sake boiled to evaporate alcohol.

I asked the chef which knife he used to make the hirame usuzukuri. He replied "yanagi" (sashimi slicer). He doesn't use a fugu hiki to make usuzukuri.

Sazae tsuboyaki (turban shell grilled in its shell)

400 yen

The same one that we had for the second dinner, shown upthread.

My son said he liked it, so we ordered it again.

Ebi fry (fried shrimp)

840 yen

I wanted to have tempura, but my daughter said she preferred ebi fry.

Okosama sushi set

840 yen

This one is for my daughter.

This one is for my son, who doesn't like ikura.

Honjitsu no sushi (today's sushi)

1,300 yen

Left to right:

Hon-maguro chu-toro (medium fatty bluefin tuna)

Tai (sea bream)

Aji (Japanese horse mackerel)

Nama tako (raw octopus)

Shoyu zuke ikura (salmon roe marinated in soy sauce)

Ama ebi (sweet shrimp)

Very good as usual.

The miso soup contained three ama ebi (sweet shrimp) heads, as usual:

I like it very much. It was a little bit too strong tonight, though.

Seirin maki

1,575 yen

Toro takuan maki (fatty tuna and yellow pickled daikon) roll

735 yen

Seirin is the name of this sushi shop. It has:

tobikko (flying fish roe)

ikura (salmon roe)

chu-toro (medium fatty tuna)

hotate (scallop)

nanban (aka ama) ebi

green shiso leaves

The Seirin maki, which is the chef's original creation, is a very popular one at this sushi shop. The last time we were there, they got at least three calls ordering this maki, so I thought I had to have it tonight.

Closeup of Seirin maki:

Closeup of toro takuan maki (toro-taku for short):

Tempura

840 yen

I wanted to have tempura, so I ordered it after all.

Closeup:

2 shrimp

1 green pepper

1 shiitake mushroom

1 kabocha slice

1 kawahagi (filefish) slice (hidden under the ebi tempura)

The kawahagi tempura was so good!!

[Hiroyuki]

double post

Edited November 23, 2007 by Hiroyuki (log)

[jean_genie]

Oh, that looks so good, and I've got some serious craving for sushi right now! Is that fire I see on the sazae's shell? I've got a fond memory of eating a live sazae picked off straight from the Sea of Japan on a snorkelling trip with the scuba diving class last year at the school I taught in Noto. I've never had such good sazae sashimi-style ever before nor since then.

[helenjp]

Saints preserve us! What a meal!

By the way, I'm interested to see that you enjoyed the kawahagi cooked better than raw. It's a cheap and popular fish where I come from (called leatherjacket or creamfish in NZ), but never great as sashimi, I think.

[shinju]

Hiroyuki, those are great looking pictures. All the food looks very delicious especially sazae and awabi. Very hard to find awabi in the US.

[_john]

I found the kawahagi less tasty than the hirame (left-eye flounder) shown upthread, but the special dipping sauce was very good, which contained kawahagi liver, soy sauce, grated ginger, and nikiri (mirin?).

Nikiri refers to mirin or sake boiled to evaporate alcohol.

I asked the chef which knife he used to make the hirame usuzukuri.  He replied "yanagi" (sashimi slicer).  He doesn't use a fugu hiki to make usuzukuri.

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I have the opposite opinion. I though the kawahagi with liver sauce was better than the left eye hirame I had recently at a sushi restaurant. I think kawahagi is a very fun looking fish too.

I have been browsing a lot of knife stores recently and still can't find much difference between a long yanagi and fuguhiki. sometimes the fuguhiki is cheaper and I want to buy it but I am afraid of being criticized for using a fuguhiki to slice sashimi. someone will notice!

[Hiroyuki]

jean_jenie: I have just finished watching the TV show, Tabi Sarada, on channel 10, which featured Noto. I've been there once back in my twenties, and I still remember how good and fresh the seafood was that was offered at the cheap Japanese inn (less than 10,000 yen per night if I remember correctly).

And, yes, it's fire. After the second dinner there, my son said he liked the sazae tsuboyaki very much, much better than the sazae sashimi and wanted to have it again. I, for one, like sazae sashimi better.

Helen: Maybe I should visit your native little fishing village after I learn all the necessary fish filleting and slicing skills, and go on a spree, buying all the cheap fish I can find.

As you know, not all white fish are the same. In fact, every white fish has its own unique flavor and texture. I know that kawahagi can never be good as normal sashimi (probably 1-cm thick slices). The same goes for fugu (puffer fish, blowfish). I once saw the famous TV show, Me Ga Ten, in which Mr. Yano ate thick slices of fugu. They were very tough and chewy, and were almost inedible!

The thin slices of kawahagi were good enough, but the kawahagi tempura was super tasty partly because it was served very hot.

shinju: I like sazae, especially sazae sashimi, but I am no big fan of awabi. It's too chewy for my taste.

John: Like the chef frequently says (to his wife, according to her blog), white fish are "oku ga fukai" (more profound, complicated than they appear). I may have different opinions about kawahagi if I have it today and tomorrow because it will be probably less chewy and tastier. When fresh, a white fish can be simply tasteless and chewy, making me think that it's all about texture.

To my question, "Oh, so you don't use a fugu hiki to make usuzukuri," the chef replied,

The point is that you have only to cut it thin.

For novices, the trouble is that this is not so easy as he says.

Edited to add some more comments about sazae tsuboyaki:

First take out the flesh, remove only the sunabukuro (sandbag, what's the right term in English?), cut the flesh into small pieces, put them back to the shell, season with sake and soy sauce, and top it with a quail egg.

Put some salt on a plate and alcohol. The salt has the effect of stabilizing the shell.

Set fire and serve. Sounds delicious, right?

Edited November 24, 2007 by Hiroyuki (log)

[helenjp]

Now I have to try some kawahagi sashimi to find out! I think that kawahagi is pretty much in season now, while hirame is not in peak season (??).

Hiroyuki, you're welcome to buy fish off the boats in my home town, if any are still in business these days, but one reason fish is mostly cheap where I grew up is that it has a particular environment that only suits certain fish - we get plenty of those, but not much of any other varieties.

Japan is quite different, since there are quite different currents on the east and the west, and especially in northern Japan, the currents vary a lot from season to season. One thing I noticed when I first came to Japan (in Shikoku and Osaka, in an area near Kobe) was the big variety of smaller fish that are commercially fished, and how seasonal they were.

Fish sellers have changed a lot since then though - hardly any neighborhood fish shops left, for one thing! I realized how rare they'd become when I went to a REALLY "shitamachi" area recently, and saw a fish stall that had absolutely beautiful trays of mixed sashimi ("chrysanthemum"-style squid with centers of salmon - expensive fish of course since it was a cheap area, but still exquisitely presented) laid out alongside with their plastic dishes of whole wet fish - and realized I hadn't seen that type of shop for years where I live.

[Kaitenzushi]

I am confused about whether the advertised prices in a sushi shop in Japan mean two pieces or one piece per serving.

e.g. Hiroyuki-san's photos of 8 Nov show only one piece of each type, is this normal?.

Kaitenzushi plates are almost always two pieces. Is the custom different for "stationary" sushi?

(The reason I do not know is because normally I eat only kaitenzushi, depachika-zushi, and konbini-zushi)

I have been once to "stationary" sushi shop in USA (two pieces) and once in Australia (one piece, quality was fine, quantity was very disappointing), but never in Japan.

[Hiroyuki]

I am confused about whether the advertised prices in a sushi shop in Japan mean two pieces or one piece per serving.

e.g. Hiroyuki-san's photos of 8 Nov show only one piece of each type, is this normal?.

Kaitenzushi plates are almost always two pieces.  Is the custom different for "stationary" sushi?

(The reason I do not know is because normally I eat only kaitenzushi, depachika-zushi, and konbini-zushi)

I have been once to "stationary" sushi shop in USA (two pieces) and once in Australia (one piece, quality was fine, quantity was very disappointing), but never in Japan.

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In all the kaitenzushi restaurants I've been to (in Japan), sushi nigiri always comes in pairs, that is, one plate has on it two pieces of nigiri with the same toppings.

The counter 'kan' 貫 used to mean two pieces, but nowadays, it often means one piece.

Watch this Kuitan episode, and you will know more about about 'kan'.

A similar situation once occurred to me when I asked the chef "... 1 kan please". He asked, "One piece?", and I said yes.

[Kaitenzushi]

In all the kaitenzushi restaurants I've been to (in Japan), sushi nigiri always comes in pairs, that is, one plate has on it two pieces of nigiri with the same toppings.

The counter 'kan' 貫 used to mean two pieces, but nowadays, it often means one piece.

Watch this Kuitan episode, and you will know more about about 'kan'.

A similar situation once occurred to me when I asked the chef "... 1 kan please".  He asked, "One piece?", and I said yes.

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Thank you Hiroyuki-san for the kuitan episode, I did not know about "kan". So "gunkan" means a ship "kan". It seems that the number in a "kan" can be confusing for Japanese people also.

I hope that 10 cent sushi will return again some day.

So the prices on the wall in your photos are for two pieces.

My original question was actually only about sushi served at sushi bar or sushi counter in Japan; I know that kaitenzushi is almost always in pairs in all countries.

(Exception: the Viking (all you can eat) place in Shinsaibashi arcade in Namba, Osaka about 100 metres north of Ebisu-bashi - only one piece per dish. That place is very inexpensive, only 980 yen at lunchtime for all you can eat, but customer pig-like behaviour is disgusting and food is only just edible, so I cannot recommend it for any reason other than price).

[Hiroyuki]

In all the kaitenzushi restaurants I've been to (in Japan), sushi nigiri always comes in pairs, that is, one plate has on it two pieces of nigiri with the same toppings.

The counter 'kan' 貫 used to mean two pieces, but nowadays, it often means one piece.

Watch this Kuitan episode, and you will know more about about 'kan'.

A similar situation once occurred to me when I asked the chef "... 1 kan please".  He asked, "One piece?", and I said yes.

←

Thank you Hiroyuki-san for the kuitan episode, I did not know about "kan". So "gunkan" means a ship "kan". It seems that the number in a "kan" can be confusing for Japanese people also.

I hope that 10 cent sushi will return again some day.

So the prices on the wall in your photos are for two pieces.

My original question was actually only about sushi served at sushi bar or sushi counter in Japan; I know that kaitenzushi is almost always in pairs in all countries.

(Exception: the Viking (all you can eat) place in Shinsaibashi arcade in Namba, Osaka about 100 metres north of Ebisu-bashi - only one piece per dish. That place is very inexpensive, only 980 yen at lunchtime for all you can eat, but customer pig-like behaviour is disgusting and food is only just edible, so I cannot recommend it for any reason other than price).

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OK, I may have misread your question.

Yes, "kan" is confusing to Japanese.

"Kan" in "gunkan" 軍艦 (warship) has nothing to do with the counter "kan" 貫.

The prices on the board on the wall are for one piece. The board explicitly says ikko 一個 (one piece). I think they avoid the use of kan because it's ambiguous. As I mentioned way upthread, traditional sushi shops are about twice as expensive as kaitenzushi restaurants.

You should be careful when ordering sushi in a traditional sushi shop in Japan because if you don't explicitly specify how many you want, the chances are that you will get two pieces of the same nigiri. If you want to avoid using 'kan', you can use ko, mentioned above.

ikko (not ichi ko) = one piece

ni ko = two pieces

san ko = three pieces

yon ko = four pieces

Or, you can also say

hitotsu = one piece

futatsu = two pieces

mittsu = thress pieces

yottsu = four pieces

[Lucil]

just wan to ask, how do you ask for the bill in a japanese?

[Hiroyuki]

just wan to ask, how do you ask for the bill in a japanese?

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A common term is

o-kanjo お勘定.

I usually say:

Suimasen, o-kanjo onegaishimasu.

すいません、お勘定お願いします。

Execuse me, bill please.

You can also simply say:

O-kanjo.

or

Suimasen, o-kanjo.

or

O-kanjo onegaishimasu.

As I said in the sushi etiquette thead,

it's not appropriate for a customer to use the word

oaiso

From here

In the end, you can make a notification by saying 'O-ai-so' that you have finished your dishes and would like to check your bill.

This is WRONG! But I must admit there are some Japanese who mistakenly like to use this and other fucho (or ingo). They probably think that they can impress the staff by using those words.

I briefly described fucho (or ingo) here in this thread.