Sunday, August 31, 2008
One Crab, Two Crabs, Red Crab, Blue Crab...
You must have seen them all…softshell crab, king crab, snow crab, blue crab, even imitation crab stick…but have you seen the Dungeness crab in a sushi roll?
I have seen it one other time.
I was overjoyed to happen upon the first of its kind, years ago, in Ari-Ya Sushi Café (now called Tani) in Pasadena. The item was listed on a “Specials” dry-erase board menu on the wall behind the sushi bar, novel and tantalizing: “Dungeness Crab Hand Roll.”
I gorged myself with one, then another, then another…until I could eat no more of the soft, delicate flakes of white and brown swirled with Japanese mayonnaise and avocado on sushi rice, then wrapped in conical folds of crisp, blackish-green nori.
I returned another day and the item disappeared.
“No more,” barked the grumpy no-nonsense sushi master, as if anything else they offered at the time could have replaced the One I had been dreaming of. I asked if it was gone for good, and he said “Next time, maybe we have.”
When another trip and a couple of “stock-check” phone calls were also made in vain, I had just about given up. Desperately, I thought perhaps I could figure out how to cook a Dungeness crab myself, then hollow out the meat and bring it with me into a sushi restaurant, whereupon I would order avocado hand rolls and stuff them in myself, a sort of bring-your-own-crab feast (BYOC?). Once, I had hidden some chili powder in my purse and taken it out in a restaurant, and the staff stared in amusement as I seasoned the food with my own smuggled-in spices.
The elusive Dungeness, perhaps a personal favorite of mine because it is nearly impossible to find (at least in sushi restaurants), has finally reared its pretty claws. The sighting: Yabu, a small Japanese restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. But even on the menu, it’s slickly tucked away at the bottom of the Special Items sheet; you won’t even find it listed in their regular sushi or online menus. There it was, the Creamy Crab Hand Roll, available with Dungeness or King Crab, Seaweed or Soy Paper. The price for my long-awaited Dungeness was a steal at only $7.50, even though the rolls are super slim, and the crab meat meager, dabbed with a little bit of Japanese mayo for the flavoring and creaminess.
The King version of this roll is golden and rich, but just doesn’t have the same texture and isn’t as satisfying as its counterpart. King crab is meaty and chewy; the Dungeness is flaky mincemeat that breaks apart easily and has its own rare, exquisite taste. And unlike Ari-Ya's long-lost original, this one doesn't come with avocado (though it can be added upon request); in my opinion, it is perfect the way it is.
Just the other day (perhaps because they knew I was taking photos of everything), the chef made them especially presentable, serving the rolls in soy paper of various hues. I recommend the soy paper wrap over the seaweed; the mamenori here is unusually soft and buttery (perhaps because their crab—Dungeness, to be sure—is out of this world).
I have seen it one other time.
I was overjoyed to happen upon the first of its kind, years ago, in Ari-Ya Sushi Café (now called Tani) in Pasadena. The item was listed on a “Specials” dry-erase board menu on the wall behind the sushi bar, novel and tantalizing: “Dungeness Crab Hand Roll.”
I gorged myself with one, then another, then another…until I could eat no more of the soft, delicate flakes of white and brown swirled with Japanese mayonnaise and avocado on sushi rice, then wrapped in conical folds of crisp, blackish-green nori.
I returned another day and the item disappeared.
“No more,” barked the grumpy no-nonsense sushi master, as if anything else they offered at the time could have replaced the One I had been dreaming of. I asked if it was gone for good, and he said “Next time, maybe we have.”
When another trip and a couple of “stock-check” phone calls were also made in vain, I had just about given up. Desperately, I thought perhaps I could figure out how to cook a Dungeness crab myself, then hollow out the meat and bring it with me into a sushi restaurant, whereupon I would order avocado hand rolls and stuff them in myself, a sort of bring-your-own-crab feast (BYOC?). Once, I had hidden some chili powder in my purse and taken it out in a restaurant, and the staff stared in amusement as I seasoned the food with my own smuggled-in spices.
The elusive Dungeness, perhaps a personal favorite of mine because it is nearly impossible to find (at least in sushi restaurants), has finally reared its pretty claws. The sighting: Yabu, a small Japanese restaurant on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. But even on the menu, it’s slickly tucked away at the bottom of the Special Items sheet; you won’t even find it listed in their regular sushi or online menus. There it was, the Creamy Crab Hand Roll, available with Dungeness or King Crab, Seaweed or Soy Paper. The price for my long-awaited Dungeness was a steal at only $7.50, even though the rolls are super slim, and the crab meat meager, dabbed with a little bit of Japanese mayo for the flavoring and creaminess.
The King version of this roll is golden and rich, but just doesn’t have the same texture and isn’t as satisfying as its counterpart. King crab is meaty and chewy; the Dungeness is flaky mincemeat that breaks apart easily and has its own rare, exquisite taste. And unlike Ari-Ya's long-lost original, this one doesn't come with avocado (though it can be added upon request); in my opinion, it is perfect the way it is.
Just the other day (perhaps because they knew I was taking photos of everything), the chef made them especially presentable, serving the rolls in soy paper of various hues. I recommend the soy paper wrap over the seaweed; the mamenori here is unusually soft and buttery (perhaps because their crab—Dungeness, to be sure—is out of this world).
Toro! Toro! Toro!
If you must order anything else, ask for the Crispy Rice Roll or the “Toro! Toro! Toro!” Roll. (Just don’t say “Tora! Tora! Tora!”).
With cooked spicy tuna and asparagus inside and a colorful rice cracker coating on the outside, the Crispy Rice Roll is edible art sitting in a red pool of spicy sauce (looks and tastes like chili oil mixed with ponzu sauce to me). The Toro (fatty tuna) specialty, on the other hand, is not so much spicy and saucy as it is oily and filling. Its toppings of onion slivers and freeze-dried chives offset the otherwise Totally Tuna experience—the filler is raw toro, the roof seared toro. So if you love fatty tuna, this is The One.
Yabu is located at 521 N. La Cienega Boulevard and can be reached at 310-854-0400.
With cooked spicy tuna and asparagus inside and a colorful rice cracker coating on the outside, the Crispy Rice Roll is edible art sitting in a red pool of spicy sauce (looks and tastes like chili oil mixed with ponzu sauce to me). The Toro (fatty tuna) specialty, on the other hand, is not so much spicy and saucy as it is oily and filling. Its toppings of onion slivers and freeze-dried chives offset the otherwise Totally Tuna experience—the filler is raw toro, the roof seared toro. So if you love fatty tuna, this is The One.
Yabu is located at 521 N. La Cienega Boulevard and can be reached at 310-854-0400.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Drink Your Fish
I am not much of a drinker…but that doesn’t mean I won’t have a glass of fish once in a while.
What???
Of course I have seen it before: a fancy martini glass literally brimming with chunks of raw fish and garnishes like slices of cucumber and sprigs of sprout. (And if you read last week’s blog, you’ll know I have at least been a fan of spring rolls served in elegant glassware.)
Kanpai Sushi in Los Angeles may not have invented this form of food presentation, but they have certainly perfected it in their “Kanpai Cocktail” by adding unheard-of toppings like tosazu jello, a brown gelatinous substance made of vinegar and bonito (a type of baby tuna), and by throwing in the more expensive items such as king crab and caviar, which most restaurants are far too stingy to add to seafood medleys.
And at only $9 per dish (or rather, glass), how can you beat it? You hardly notice the base of filler items consisting of seaweed salad and cucumber, which help add size to the portion without robbing them of too much of the meatier stuff they put in there, such as tuna and yellowtail. Besides, you need your kelp.
You don’t really drink it—not right away, anyway. The idea is to pick all the meat off the top with chopsticks, then eat the roughage, and then finally, quaff the residual jellylike mass (about the size of a shot) in a big gulp.
You do this and your body reminds you, after you swallow, that it is not really a liquid you’re imbibing, nor is it sweet like dessert or seductive like alcohol. It is salty, and pungent and sour and strong, like doing a soy-sauce-and-vinegar chaser that is tinged with the taste of fish. You do this only if you want to polish off the gelatin-sauce-thing, no one will force you. You do this…and you have completed your daring fish-cocktail undertaking. You are proud.
The sushi chef stares at you and for a moment you think he is disgusted that you have actually sucked down all the fish-jello, or maybe he’s astonished that you have not gagged; but then you realize he is merely curious what you think of his creation as he asks, “You like it?”
Of course…you will love it.
Zen Sushi in Hollywood calls their version the “Poki Martini,” a bit pricier at $13 but the fish cups runneth over. The chunks seem bigger here, and maybe crab is absent but the salmon surface. Toppings on this one: smelt fish eggs instead of caviar, and burdock root (yamagobo) in place of sprouts. Sorry, no brown gooey jelly stuff to inhale on this one, but ordinary fish-followers may love that about it.
Find Kanpai Sushi at 8325 Lincoln Blvd in Los Angeles, and Zen Sushi at 8163 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood.
Monday, August 18, 2008
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