A Sliver Of Perfection

Today I’d like to take you on a journey to Japan. Let’s go sushi-making and sushi-tasting. And I’m not talking about “oh, you can eat sushi that you might find in your hometown”. I’m talking about the sushi in Japan, the sushi that is so divine that you will go a whole day happily without eating anything else but this one sliver, this one bite of perfection delivered by the chef.

Because that is what sushi is in Japan. It is this pursuit of perfection, of taking everything and condensing it into a single bite, into a single tiny thing that’s on your plate. Definitely not all you can eat — more like, eat once and forever want to eat always, ever again.

A Family Sushi Experience

I was in Japan last year and I had two very different sushi experiences, both absolutely brilliant, both completely different. The first was with my friend and host Christian, my old housemate from my days living in England. He lives out there with his Japanese wife and Japanese son English-Japanese son.

And they took me to this large family sushi restaurant in the suburbs of Tokyo. From the distance, you would say it’s nondescript. And I loved it from the start because as I walked in, instead of having a person take you to your table, it was a robot. So you told the robot how many people you were and the robot told you where you should sit. And then you sat down and everything was automated in this way. You know, it was the future.

And I also loved it because I always wanted to experience one of these massive conveyor belts with the sushi — not one of these small bars that you get with the all-you-can-eat, not one of these little ones that goes around like 12 tables, and you can see the guy across from you has already touched the one that you want to pick up — a massive conveyor belt.

And the action of people taking in all the just constant temptation. The whole time I was in there that was just plate after plate after plate, and it kept changing. And at first I was eating like a pig, just having everything. And then you get a bit full and then you get a bit more selective. And that was the Japanese family sushi experience. An everyday meal, good ingredients, cheap food, very easy with kids, nothing special, very efficient.

A Poetic Sushi Experience

The other experience I had was entirely different. It was in a very small sushi restaurant, in the city of Osaka. And a very old world or traditional sushi in the way that you sit at the bar and the chef is in the middle. So the chef is facing you and is working perhaps on a corner with a maximum of four or five, six customers at a time.

And as you order, the chef is preparing it, slicing the fish, preparing everything freshly right in front of your eyes. And it was like watching a boxer, the way the chef was crouched in position, always looking at his customers. While he was taking fish from here, and rice from here, and rolling and cutting, continually on the move. You know, almost like — it looked like he was shadowboxing, the way he was kind of dancing with the food, dancing with the air, never taking his eyes off anything.

The absolute attention to detail, the speed at which the sushi came out, was incredible. You would say something and then it was hard to know if he was making my sushi, someone else’s sushi, and then suddenly it was on your plate. Like, wow, that is — okay, yes. And then the person next to me got something — okay, I love one of them. And then more and more and more.

And then in this restaurant, there were  just the two of them. Each with a corner. Each in their boxing stunts, just moving with such speed, such precision, without a bead of sweat. It was poetry. It was poetry watching how these chefs created sushi, personal individual sushi, for the diners. It was quite exquisite. And you know, let’s not go into the taste. The taste was as divine as you can imagine having real sushi in a good Japanese restaurant.

Going Further Into Sushi

And I do know you can go further than that, if you visit Japan. You can actually learn some of the behind-the-scenes stuff. You can do a decorated sushi-making class. You can do a sushi-making class at a top Tokyo restaurant, with a top Tokyo chef. I mean, in one class, you’re not going to learn the 10, 12 years of experience that’s needed to become a sushi chef — but wow, you’ll get an understanding of why it’s like this, how it’s like this and the expertise that goes into it.

After going to Japan, I’ve never once stepped foot in an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. You know, sushi in Japan spoiled me. And since then, I’ve been incredibly selective. I used to love it, then I went to Japan and I loved it so much that I would rather wait for this next sliver of brilliance than go into some average sushi place.