It's about the quality of the rice. They inevitably write about all the toppings, but a sushi connoisseur cares about the rice. If the rice isn't right, it doesn't matter how fresh or special the fish is.
American sushi chefs have a ways to go on that. Anybody can get really fresh fish these days if you're willing to pay for it, but it's the ability to manipulate the rice that makes the difference. You weren't getting any shipments on Sunday, so therefore you'd be eating fish from the Friday before. But nowadays, given international trade, many restaurants are getting fish any day of the week. They're frozen hours or even minutes within getting caught.
So most of the fish you're gonna get in a sushi place is frozen. Very, very few sushi restaurants in the states would sell tuna that would never have been frozen -- that would be pretty rare. Frankly, most people wouldn't like it. Freezing allows the meat to firm up and it tastes a little better. I've had completely fresh tuna and most Americans wouldn't like it; it has a strong gamey taste. What a salmon may be eating in one part of the world, it isn't eating in another. There's a variability there.
You don't have that in farmed fish -- you have a certain consistency. A lot of the tuna in a more affordable sushi place is farmed; more upscale restaurants offer wild- or line-caught. But a lot of stuff like abalone is going to be farmed either way.
You wouldn't want to be eating any fish that has a possibility of mercury contamination. Given where they are in the food chain, some fish have more mercury. Tuna are eating a lot of smaller fish -- those smaller fish eat plankton, [and plankton live] where there's a lot of mercury in the water. You wouldn't have to worry about that issue with regards to most sushi fish. There are certain bacteria that can get into fish, but there's a very small chance [of that happening].
If that liver sack is compromised it's a very powerful neurotoxin. Probably 15 people die a year from fugu pufferfish poisoning in Japan. The government of Japan approved a certain course to learn to clean it, so It's usually been prepared in Japan by somebody that's been taught to do it -- they freeze it and bring it over.
When in doubt, follow your nose. The freshest fish smells lightly of the ocean — old fish smells nauseatingly fishy. So to be safe, unless you know the place typically serves fresh sushi, save yourself a fishy experience. Written by NextShark's Max Chang. Enter your email address below and we'll deliver our top stories straight to your inbox.
Your Inbox is Hungry Enter your email address below to get Food News delivered straight to your inbox. Mondays are the pits. After a restorative weekend, you're forced back into reality and you feel like a lab rat stuck in a cubicle, studied for the effects fluorescent light has on skin. So after a looonnggg day at the office, all you want to do is unwind and get some sushi with your girls and weep into a tall glass of sake.
You might want to reconsider where you host this much-needed happy hour -- depending on where you tend to dine. Though sushi is delicious, and in some cases packed with healthy fats and fiber , sushi and other fish may not be at its freshest on the first day of the workweek.
Since most fresh fish markets are closed on Sundays, many assume that Monday's seafood dinner is, well, a little fishy. Yes, there are some contradicting opinions about eating fish and sushi on Mondays. In his book, " Kitchen Confidential ," published in , the ever-abrasive chef Anthony Bourdain writes that seafood served on Monday is "about four to five days old," and that he'd never eat it unless he knew the restaurant well.
But, he redacts his statement in " Medium Raw ," published in , in which he writes , "But eat the fucking fish on Monday already. I wrote those immortal words about not going for the Monday fish, the ones that'll haunt me long after I'm crumbs in a can, knowing nothing other than New York City.
And times, to be fair, have changed.
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