Sushi used to be simple. A piece of fish, a block of rice, a touch of soy and wasabi. Easy.
But that was before sushi exploded, before practically every neighborhood in America had its own sushi bar, and vendors from grocery stores to airports were getting in on the act.
Chicago’s sushi chefs, desperate to differentiate themselves in a crowded and expanding field, have turned tradition on its ear, designing a new breed of sushi that includes all manner of who-thought-of-that ingredients.
Foie gras sushi? That’s not true sushi by anyone’s definition, but you can get it at Saiko, a super-trendy Japanese fusion restaurant in the South Loop. At Tank, a six-week-old restaurant in Lincoln Square, one sushi creation includes cream cheese, avocado, eel, sesame seeds, crushed peanuts and sweetened soy sauce.
Is this cuisine or “Fear Factor”?
It depends on whom you ask. Sushi really refers to the seasoned rice, the base for such traditional ingredients as raw fish, cooked fish and vegetables; other creations, including some that forego rice entirely, are a stretch. Some believe these western-styled sushi serve as useful introductions to customers too intimidated to leap into the raw-fish experience, and as exciting creations for jaded sushi sophisticates looking for new tastes.
For others, “creative sushi” is a contradiction in terms, a betrayal of the very simplicity and purity of taste that made sushi so beautiful in the first place.
Hiroshi Takaishi, the head sushi chef at Kamehachi of Tokyo on Wells Street, says, “a little variety is good,” but rolls his eyes at the notion of short ribs and jalapeno peppers and other oddities.
“It’s definitely not traditional,” says Jasmine Yoon, who with partner Andy Park owns Starfish Sushi in the city, Wildfish in Arlington Heights and the soon-to-open Swordfish in Batavia. “We have some creative sushi, but we prefer to add specialty fishes–candy-red albacore, blue marlin, striped marlin.
“But just because it’s got unagi [barbecued eel] doesn’t make it Japanese.”
But in these highly competitive times, many restaurateurs are reluctant to impose their notions of authenticity on anyone. “We have to have dishes for the customer who doesn’t eat raw fish,” says Franco Gianni, who co-owns Sushi Wabi and Tank restaurants.
Enter the Dragon Roll. And the Spider maki, and other creations designed more for looks.
The most common sushi styles are nigiri, in which a hand-formed mound of vinegar-dressed rice is topped by a piece of fish; and maki, in which fish and other ingredients are rolled in rice and dried seaweed and cut into bite-sized pieces.
Nigiri sushi are simple–one main ingredient with a smidge of spicy wasabi paste over rice. Maki rolls typically contain several ingredients rolled together–and it is this style of sushi that offers the chef the most creative leeway.
“The maki roll is your ensemble,” says Mariann Marinberg, co-owner of Dr. Zushi in Northbrook. “It’s the dress-up part of the restaurant.”
And so Paul Wildermuth, executive chef at Saiko, produces such oddities as the Kobe Beef roll, in which Kobe-style beef tartare is encased in a “roll” of deep-fried brioche. It looks like rice, but it’s bread. The foie gras maki is rolled with pear relish and onion marmalade. It’s pretty tasty. But it isn’t sushi.
These “sushi gone wild” creations help sushi purveyors market themselves to customers who still aren’t comfortable eating raw fish, and goodness knows there are still plenty of those. It’s one thing to swallow a sliver of raw tuna that’s been dressed in sauce and rolled with other ingredients. It’s quite another to sit down to a plate of raw tuna presented sashimi-style (no rice, no roll, just raw).
“Maki rolls are the perfect opportunity for those who are not raw-fish eaters,” says Gianni. “You can implement any ingredient–from tuna, the simplest of all raw fish, to the more dramatic, such as squid or scallops. When they’re in a maki roll, those fish are masked by other flavors. A lot of people come in that aren’t sushi eaters, but will try maki rolls.”
Adds Jeanette Diaz, a manager at Tank: “People come in and say, `I don’t do sushi,’ but then I give them an Orange Crush [a signature maki roll], or another maki that has flavors people recognize, and it goes over very well.”
Indeed, one of the most popular maki rolls at Tank is called Latin Heat, which combines raw escolar with smoked salmon, avocado, cilantro, jalapeno pepper and chile mayonnaise. Familiar ingredients all–if you’re in a Mexican restaurant. But as a Japanese maki? Shrugs Gianni, “Everyone seems to like it.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with any creative maki,” says Miae Lim, co-owner of Mirai Sushi, Ohba and Japonais–all of which offer sushi in one form or another. “It seems to be the best way for beginners who are starting to explore sushi.
“It has been the same way with Asian food in general,” she says. “At first, there was just Chinese, then you’d start to see Cantonese and Szechwan restaurants. You have to start somewhere.”
The California roll, after all, began its life as a “beginner’s sushi,” a roll that included mostly vegetables and no raw fish. A similar item that has been around for years is the so-called Philadelphia roll, which contains smoked salmon and cream cheese.
The Philadelphia roll, oddly enough, is where Miae Lim draws the line.
“I like cream cheese on a bagel,” she says firmly. “I don’t like it in sushi.”
Jun Ichikawa, chef at Mirai and Japonais, agrees. Cream cheese isn’t in any of his maki rolls. He also refuses to make Dragon Rolls, in which rice-wrapped unagi (barbecued eel) is topped with avocado “scales.”
“To Jun-San, the Dragon Roll didn’t make sense,” Lim says. “The dish is more about decoration. When you put it in your mouth, the avocado slides away from the roll, so you’re not getting all the flavors in one bite.
“When we first opened,” Lim says, “people asked every day, `Why don’t you have a Dragon Roll?’ Now it’s more like once a month, which is progress.”
And, yes, the low-carb craze has invaded the sushi world.
Yoon recently introduced sushi rolls made with Chinese Forbidden rice–a black rice that’s less processed than white rice and has more fiber.
“We’ve been trying it on our regular customers, and about 90 percent love it,” says Yoon. “They love the little bit of extra texture, and the taste doesn’t overpower the fish.” Black rice is more expensive than white, however, so maki rolls made with the black rice are $1 more.
Dr. Zushi goes a step farther still, offering maki rolls with no rice at all. Instead, the fish are wrapped in long, thin slices of cucumber.
“We call them Kutees,” Marinberg says. “Knowing that low-carb is a huge trend, we created a line of rolls with no rice.”
The irony is that some carb-counting sushi lovers still aren’t prepared to order sashimi, which is pure raw fish. They still need to mix in other ingredients.
“I see it as a transition,” Marinberg says. “Kutees made with fresh fish are slowly transforming customers from eating rolls, rolls, rolls to a more pure way of sushi eating.”
Raw fish, cooked fish, no fish; white rice, black rice, no rice. Is there any right or wrong to sushi any more?
“No maki is ever wrong,” says Lim, “if it sells.”
Four Makis that work:
White Dragon maki, Starfish (804 W. Randolph St., 312-997-2433). Mixing super-white tuna in a maki is usually a waste of pricey seafood; the other ingredients overwhelm the delicate fish. But in this maki the tuna is placed on top of a mix of tempura shrimp, avocado, cucumber and masago (smelt roe), and the flavor shines through.
Red Samurai maki, Izumi (731 W. Randolph St., 312-207-5299). Unagi, avocado and cucumber wrapped in a thick blanket of barely seared salmon. Cool-looking, and delicious.
Orange Crush maki, Tank (4514 N. Lincoln Ave., 773-769-2600). The masago on top supplies the orange color, beneath which is a spicy mix of crab, avocado and fresh salmon.
Inca Roll, SushiSamba Rio (504 N. Wells St., 312-595-2300). A veggie roll with shiitake mushrooms, burdock root and Japanese squash. A California roll with class.
Four Makis that Don’t:
Crunch maki, Starfish. Tempura shrimp, cooked asparagus and tempura “flakes.” Cute, but too much deep-fry here.
Hawaiian maki, Izumi. Macadamia nuts, eel sauce, mango slices–is this dessert?
Ocean Sundae roll, Tank. Cream cheese, mayo and tempura? Throw this fatty thing overboard.
Chi-Town roll, SushiSamba Rio. We appreciate the gesture of naming a roll for us. But what have spicy tuna, crunchy salmon and hazelnut-ponzu sauce got to do with Chicago?
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Etiquette keeps diners free of fishy miscues
Sushi has been around Chicago for more than three decades, yet not long enough for Chi-cagoans to have perfected their sushi etiquette.
We’d like to help put an end to sushi slipups, so we consulted some experts, including veteran sushi chef Juco Hattori of Itto Sushi; Clay Morton, catering director of Heat and representatives of the Japanese Information Center, on the do’s and don’t’s of sushi dining.
DON’T’S
1. Don’t go up to the sushi chef and ask, “What’s fresh today?” “At a sushi bar everything has to be fresh, so that is the only question I find a little annoying,” says Hattori.
2. When you break apart your chopsticks don’t rub them together to try to remove splinters. It is considered rude since it seems to say that proprietor gave you cheap splintery chopsticks. “Or it could seem like you are saying, ‘I am hungry, “yak, yak, yak,” ‘ ” says Hattori.
3. Don’t mix your wasabi with your soy sauce. “They complement each other but at the same time they have different aspects. And when you mix them, it muddies the distinction and you really want to taste them separately,” says Morton.
4. Don’t stick your chopsticks in your bowl of rice. That is the way many Asian cultures leave food for the dead. When not using your chopsticks, lay them side by side on the chopstick rest, preferably parallel to the sushi bar.
DO’S
1. Do use your hands to lift and dip slices of maki roll or nigiri. “Traditionally sushi is seen as a finger food,” says Morton.
2. Do dip your nigiri fish first in the soy sauce rather than dipping the rice in the sauce. You are supposed to be seasoning the fish not the rice. Another option: “You can also paint the soy on to your fish with a piece of ginger as a brush,” says Morton.
3. Do eat your maki slices and nigiri in one bite. If you can’t, “hold the piece in your hand near your mouth and then finish it in a second bite. Don’t return the half eaten piece to the plate,” says Morton.
4. Do use pickled ginger as a palate cleanser between pieces. And speaking of ginger, white ginger is considered better than pink pickled ginger.
5. Do tip your sushi chef if he takes special care of you.
