John Doe wrote:
On Jun 19, 8:12 am, Dan Logcher wrote:

James wrote:

Today I passed by Todai without eating. It's 40 miles from home so
usually I would dine if I happened to be near. Just didn't want to
spend $30+ for what is now common food.

Everyone and his dog eat sushi now.

I'd eat sushi everyday.. If it weren't so expensive.

In life, you get what you pay for mostly.

I go to a Chinese run AYCE place that has a huge buffet of sushi. 6 or
7 types of sashimi including the tiny octopus, ikura gunkenzushi,
escolar, tuna, salmon, yellowtail, mackerel and clam. All have a fair
amount of fish and the rice is well balanced.

They also have a large stainless steel bowl with each of the above
fish items available in large bite sized pieces by itself. I always
get one piece of this to go with each piece of sashimi. I like more
fish on each piece.

Yeah, there's a Minado not too far from us. We go there from time to time
for a complete pigout, but I wouldn't say its good sushi. They have robots
make the rice balls, and chefs piece together pre-sliced fish on the balls
to put on large geta. Its fair sushi, not good or great.

I would eat good sushi everyday if I could afford it. Hell, if I was a
bazillionaire, I'd have a sushi chef on my cooking staff. But alas, I am
not.

--
Dan

On Jun 20, 10:13 am, Dan Logcher wrote:

Yeah, there's a Minado not too far from us. We go there from time to time
for a complete pigout, but I wouldn't say its good sushi. They have robots
make the rice balls, and chefs piece together pre-sliced fish on the balls
to put on large geta. Its fair sushi, not good or great.

I would eat good sushi everyday if I could afford it. Hell, if I was a
bazillionaire, I'd have a sushi chef on my cooking staff. But alas, I am
not.

--
Dan

I hear you Dan. I started my second Billion today.

I gave up on the first one.

I would love to have really good sushi every day. I don't think I
could ever get tired of it.

At "Wasabi's", everything is hand made. They have about 6 people
working constantly behind the bar making more. One of them knows how
much I love Ikura and always brings me a "special" plate with 4 huge
ones on it. He gets a tip from me for his extra attention each time.
God, I love that stuff! I do believe I could eat it from the jar with
nothing but a spoon.

The fish is fresh also. It has the fresh, crisp taste and texture of
fish that has never been frozen. I don't know how they do it. The
place is very popular and is always very busy the entire evening. I
wish it were closer to my house. It's quite a bit down the road, but
well worth the drive to me each Saturday.

On 2007-06-20 08:28:51 -0700, John Doe said:

On Jun 20, 10:13 am, Dan Logcher wrote:

Yeah, there's a Minado not too far from us. We go there from time to time
for a complete pigout, but I wouldn't say its good sushi. They have robots
make the rice balls, and chefs piece together pre-sliced fish on the balls
to put on large geta. Its fair sushi, not good or great.

I would eat good sushi everyday if I could afford it. Hell, if I was a
bazillionaire, I'd have a sushi chef on my cooking staff. But alas, I am
not.

I hear you Dan. I started my second Billion today.

I gave up on the first one.

I lost a fortune after the crash. Fortunately I had another. -- Moss Hart

I would love to have really good sushi every day. I don't think I
could ever get tired of it.

I would not. Anymore than I'd like very good anything every day. The
fact is I don't usually eash sushi anyway in Japanese restaurants. In
a "sushi bar", I'll usually get a little sashimi to start and maybe a
clam miso soup in there. Otherwise the rest is not "sushi bar" fare.
Some steamed foods, grilled foods, deep-fried foods, baked, pickled.
Jeez, the breadth of Japanese cuisine is so amazingly wide.

Every few months we'll stop some place and either because it is quick,
or because the restaurant is swamped with business we'll order a passel
of sushi, begrudgingly, with a stubby pencil and the order-form.

At "Wasabi's", everything is hand made. They have about 6 people
working constantly behind the bar making more. One of them knows how
much I love Ikura and always brings me a "special" plate with 4 huge
ones on it. He gets a tip from me for his extra attention each time.
God, I love that stuff! I do believe I could eat it from the jar with
nothing but a spoon.

In what they call gunkan-maki (battle ship wrap)? It's quite a ikura
delivery system. Going omakase as we usually do, we got a little
pudding bowl full of home-made tofu decorated with strips of nori, some
little mushrooms and a generous dose of ikura, among other things.
Jeez it was good.

The fish is fresh also. It has the fresh, crisp taste and texture of
fish that has never been frozen. I don't know how they do it. The
place is very popular and is always very busy the entire evening. I
wish it were closer to my house. It's quite a bit down the road, but
well worth the drive to me each Saturday.


--
///---

On Jun 20, 2:10 pm, Gerry wrote:

In what they call gunkan-maki (battle ship wrap)? It's quite a ikura
delivery system.

I think it's "Gunboat" but battle ship is close enough... Yes, if
enough ikura is on it, the rice, nori and ikura have a very, very good
combination of flavors to me. It's by far my favorite sushi.

Going omakase as we usually do, we got a little
pudding bowl full of home-made tofu decorated with strips of nori, some
little mushrooms and a generous dose of ikura, among other things.
Jeez it was good.

Was the tofu plain or flavored in some way? I've never enjoyed it
plain. It seems too bland for me. If it's been marinated or cooked
with something, I do love it's texture and whatever taste it's
adopted. I've never tried it with ikura....hmmmm.

I do love plain home made soy milk. Ice cold, it's one of my favorite
drinks. My niece makes it all the time and brings me some. It caught
me off guard the first time, but it grew on me. Now I really enjoy it.

"John Doe" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jun 20, 2:10 pm, Gerry wrote:

In what they call gunkan-maki (battle ship wrap)? It's quite a ikura
delivery system.

I think it's "Gunboat" but battle ship is close enough... Yes, if
enough ikura is on it, the rice, nori and ikura have a very, very good
combination of flavors to me. It's by far my favorite sushi.


Gunkan is literally "military ship" but it's usually used to mean
"battleship" even
though there is a more accurate word for battleship"senkan". Either way, the
shape
when seen from above is the origin.
OK, before someone actually looks at a photo of a battleship taken from
above and tells
me I am wrong, please note that today's warships usually have a transom
stern which is cut
flat. In the old days warships had a cruiser stern which was rounded.

BTW, I find that with ikura gunkan maki, once
in a while you might get Ikura that is not fresh and dehydration has made it
excessively salty.
Back in the 80s I saw alot of places serving it with a quail egg yolk on
top. Not recently though.
You're absolutely right about Nori and Ikura going together very well. If I
have any Ikura
in the house I'll often dump it on top of a bowl of hot rice and shred up
Nori on top.
It's the easy way if I don;t want to make sushi rice.
M

On 2007-06-20 11:23:28 -0700, John Doe said:

Going omakase as we usually do, we got a little
pudding bowl full of home-made tofu decorated with strips of nori, some
little mushrooms and a generous dose of ikura, among other things.
Jeez it was good.

Was the tofu plain or flavored in some way?

Nope. Just as is.

I've never enjoyed it plain. It seems too bland for me. If it's been
marinated or cooked
with something, I do love it's texture and whatever taste it's
adopted. I've never tried it with ikura....hmmmm.

I'm not a tofu fan. In fact a blog entry on a local joint (I'll post in
a second public), comments on the fact that Nancy likes it and I have
no real use for it.

I do love plain home made soy milk. Ice cold, it's one of my favorite
drinks. My niece makes it all the time and brings me some. It caught
me off guard the first time, but it grew on me. Now I really enjoy it.

Neer been a fan of that either. I use milk on cereal except when nancy
shifted to soy milk it became my responsibility to remind her, each
time, to buy it at the store. Eventually I gave up and I've acclimated
to soy milk, which is just fine and just as easy to disregard as the
milk that preceeded it.
--
///---

Just didn't want to
spend $30+ for what is now common food.



Todai costs about $15 for lunch.

On 2007-06-22 08:51:00 -0700, said:

Just didn't want to spend $30+ for what is now common food.

Todai costs about $15 for lunch.

If it's just the food of it, that would be fine. I'm not a fan of
Todai-for-sushi. I've otherwise enjoyed eating there and it is
certainly has a great value comparable to other places relative to cost
and variety.

But the "sushi event" aspects that have come to define the foodstuff is
not present there. That would be: sitting at a bar, engaging a sushi
chef, being clustered with others, enjoying/submitting to the protocols
of sushibarhood and so forth.

That doesn't necessarily change the nature of the food. But for
certain foods you expect a certain ambience, and that expectation
frames our understanding of the experience. It's true you could easily
get walk-up window sushi at the beach, or cloth-napkin and crystal
tacos, or prime steak at the ballpark. But these things have the
related hoo-hah that has become part of the base experience.

I don't know that, at $30 a lunch, sushi was ever anything but
exraordinarily overpriced. But at one time, some 25 years ago or so,
the chef had a lot of hustle to perform in order to keep and provide
fresh fish (including the potential waste), potentially high-prices for
getting that fish, etc. Nowadays in most major and even minor cities
there are distributors that specialize in providing the now more
expensive fish to these purveyors. In sum, you'd figure their overhead
has gone down dramatically. Maybe only "substantially".

In any case with all the competition and the ease-of-distribution you'd
figure the markup on tennis shoes would also have dropped
substantially. And cars, and many other things. But no, the apparently
1000% profit margin is acceptable as long as it is acceptable.
--
///---

and it is
certainly has a great value comparable to other places relative to
cost
and variety...


______________


Constantly reinforced for me. I was just at a couple of upscale sushi
joints in your climatically near-perfect but traffically-challenged
state, Encinitas and San Diego, and both gave me small amounts of
expensive sushi, OK, somehwat better quality than Todai, but not
earthshakingly superior, just a few little pieces of fish, the piece
of tuna in one was the super-red color that I believe indicates
chemical alteration, both heavy on "California roll" space fillers,
and neither would make my chirashi for me because it wasn't on the
menu, which is probably just as well because they would have done a
bad job of it anyway. Both, though, had the ambiance, I guess, if you
value that sort of thing. Anyway, I kinda like Todai for my sushi
trough sushi fixes.

The trick with Todai is to go at lunchtime. They like double their
prices for supper and Sundays and holidays.

On Jun 22, 1:16 pm, wrote:
The trick with Todai is to go at lunchtime. They like double their
prices for supper and Sundays and holidays.

The only reason I don't go for lunch is no uni. Don't know if lunch
include yellowtail. Don't particularly like their yellowtail. Ikura
don't impress me.

I've discovered that I only like uni, salmon, yellowtail, and eel
(mostly for the sauce). When bluecrab are in season, the roe taste
like uni to me so I don't need to eat uni. I like my snow crab legs
hot not cold, I like Virginia oysters not Pacific oysters, I like my
lobster steamed not Japanese style. So it really don't pay for me to
make a trip to Todai because I don't take advantage of all they have
to offer. It served its purpose by helping me find out what I like
and what I don't.

James wrote:
On Jun 22, 1:16 pm, wrote:
The trick with Todai is to go at lunchtime. They like double their
prices for supper and Sundays and holidays.

The only reason I don't go for lunch is no uni.




They serve uni at your Todai!?

"James" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jun 22, 1:16 pm, wrote:
The trick with Todai is to go at lunchtime. They like double their
prices for supper and Sundays and holidays.

The only reason I don't go for lunch is no uni. Don't know if lunch
include yellowtail. Don't particularly like their yellowtail. Ikura
don't impress me.

I've discovered that I only like uni, salmon, yellowtail, and eel
(mostly for the sauce). When bluecrab are in season, the roe taste
like uni to me so I don't need to eat uni. I like my snow crab legs
hot not cold, I like Virginia oysters not Pacific oysters, I like my
lobster steamed not Japanese style.

May I ask how a "Japanese Style" lobster is prepared?
Rather curious as there are no lobsters (clawed) in Japan.

On 2007-06-29 10:52:49 -0700, "Musashi" said:

May I ask how a "Japanese Style" lobster is prepared?
Rather curious as there are no lobsters (clawed) in Japan.

I have only rarely encountered lobster, live in the tank, at one of my
favorite Japanese restaurants. A very authentic place with lots of fish
from Japanse waters. The lobster we had twice over the past 8 years
were very large, and yes they had no claws, as best I recall. In any
case they were very different looking. I've forgotten how they were
done exactly, except the task was undertaken by an incredibly talented
young Japanese chef, with very good English, who was head-hunted away
to a shop in Paris.

He prepared the wealth of material into three separate dishes. One was
steamed, if memory serves and was decorated by a reduction sauce that
underscored the diverse background of the chef. I've forgotten the
details, but nothing was wasted.
--
///---

On Jun 29, 1:52 pm, "Musashi" wrote:
"James" wrote in message

ups.com...

On Jun 22, 1:16 pm, wrote:
The trick with Todai is to go at lunchtime. They like double their
prices for supper and Sundays and holidays.

The only reason I don't go for lunch is no uni. Don't know if lunch
include yellowtail. Don't particularly like their yellowtail. Ikura
don't impress me.

I've discovered that I only like uni, salmon, yellowtail, and eel
(mostly for the sauce). When bluecrab are in season, the roe taste
like uni to me so I don't need to eat uni. I like my snow crab legs
hot not cold, I like Virginia oysters not Pacific oysters, I like my
lobster steamed not Japanese style.

May I ask how a "Japanese Style" lobster is prepared?
Rather curious as there are no lobsters (clawed) in Japan.


The closest Todai to me do serve uni but the plate is often empty as
they don't refill it as often as the cheaper stuff. If you ask for
some they give you 2 pieces at a time.

Maybe I should have said lobster Todai style which is frozen Atlantic
lobsters split in half, baked and with some kind of mayo like sauce on
top.