Chan's Personal Blog

Preamble

Since a lot of chatter and discussion has arisen from my article, "If There Was Such Thing As Chicken Sushi", this seems like a good time to talk about the greatest of all Japanese restaurants.

Being an avid watcher of the Food Network, I usually watch a show called Chef At Large. It's an interesting show because the host travels across Canada to take a look at the culturally diverse cuisines that can be found across our great nation. The most interesting episode I saw was entitled Sushi which featured a restaurant called Tojo's, which is located in Vancouver. It is hailed as one of the best Japanese restaurants in North America. Chef At Large provided a lot of interesting information about this restaurant.

Sushi Inventions

The owner of the restaurant, Hidekazu Tojo, is the master sushi chef. He has a very interesting background. He came to Vancouver in the 1970s because he felt that a multicultural city would appreciate his cuisine. His initial goal was to help sushi newbies learn to appreciate Japanese cuisine by slowly easing them into it. This is because a lot of people don't like the idea of eating raw fish. He introduced a wide array of cooked dishes for the locals to enjoy.

His most famous contributions are probably the California Roll and the BC Roll. The California roll was inspired by the fact that people in Vancouver didn't like the idea of eating seaweed (which is what rolls are wrapped in). So, like a parent trying to coax a child to eat something they don't like, he turned the roll inside-out. The seaweed was wrapped with sushi rice, so customers didn't see or realize they were eating seaweed. The California Roll is born, and is a huge success.

The BC Roll has an interesting story as well. BBQ eel was a delicacy in Japan, and he wanted to introduce that in his menu. Tojo had a hard time finding eel in the fish markets in Vancouver, and people didn't like the idea of it. He noticed that salmon was in abundance here on the West Coast, so he experimented with the ingredient. He found that BBQ salmon skin tasted just like BBQ eel. So, he incorporated BBQ salmon skins into a roll, and the BC Roll was born. Both rolls are widely available here in the west coast, and if I remember correctly, the recipes have reached Japan.

I applaud Hidekazu Tojo for inventing these two wonderful rolls in this wonderful country called Canada. (Queue anthem, eyes start to tear ).

Quality Fish Obsession

In the episode, Tojo took the host of the show down to the commercial fish market. He was looking for fish that were in season. Apparently Tojo buys about $1 million worth of fish every year for the restaurant. The fresh fish that he purchases are quickly put into a deep freeze which preserves freshness of the fish. The most interesting fish he came across was a rare blue-fin tuna that was from Spain; the fish sold for $50,000! That must be one fine fish. So apparently he comes to the market to find fish that is in season, buys a whole bunch of them, puts it into deep freeze, and stores it away in a warehouse. The advantage of having a restaurant in Vancouver is that a lot of caught fish arrive in Vancouver first; so Tojo gets first pick of the fish before they're shipped out to Japan.

The Apprentices

They then went to the restaurant where he was showing off his apprentices. In order to become one of his apprentices, you have to pass a knife test. Tojo gives you a large dicon radish (which is shaped like a tall cylinder), and you have to peel the thing with a super sharp knife. The trick is, you have peel the radish so you get a paper thin strip of it. (Hard to explain, but imagine a roll of aluminum foil, and you keep pulling until the whole roll is gone, and you have a continuous sheet of alumnium foil that is paper thin. Well, that's what you have to do with the radish.) Let's just say the host failed miserably at this task.

Many students come from Japan to study under him because they can learn the art of sushi much faster. One of the students that was interviewed said that in Japan, he could be a sushi apprentice for 7 years, and spend the whole time learning how to pour tea properly. In that 7 years, you would never touch any piece of raw fish. He explained that in North America, the master sushi chefs are less steeped in cultural tradition, so apprentices can learn and practice their art much faster.

Even The Sake Is Special

Another interesting thing about Tojo's is their sake (Japanese rice wine) collection. The host got to sit down with Tojo's sake dealer. The first thing that the host noticed was that the sake was served cold; sake is traditionally served warm. The dealer explained that the traditional brewing techniques for sake were very poor. Therefore, most places that served sake would serve it up hot, in order to hide imperfections in the sake. Nowadays, there are high quality sakes, and there's no need to heat them.

They take sake very seriously, so they offer a selection of sakes that are brewed in Japan, and are exclusively available to Tojo's. You can't find them anywhere else.

The Legendary Omakase

Lastly, they covered what the restaurant is famous for, Omakase, which literally means "Chef, I'm in your hands." Omakase is where you tell the chef how much money you're spending, what you like and dislike, and the chef chooses the menu for you. You can choose to spend $50, $75, $100, $100+ on Omakase, and it looked like it was an 8 course meal. For this particular episode, Tojo was making foods that he wanted to submit to a sushi contest, so he got his customers to try them out. The most famous dish he prepared for his guests was sablefish broiled in a light broth. He also served some sushi rolls that were wrapped in cucumber. Very interesting presentation.



The roll above isn't what was served on the TV episode, but it does illustrate the use of the paper-thin cucumber. (That's probably why his apprentices have to pass the knife test.)

Conclusion

Wait.... why did you actually write this article Chan? I'm hoping to open up a new front in PLuM VS Boss' Japanese restaurant dispute. They'll probably debate what Japanese restaurant is the best in Vancouver now.

It also serves as a shaky excuse to get my boss to write about her Tojo's experience. At work, Tojo's has achieved mythical status as I keep ranting and raving about this amazing restaurant. Last weekend my boss and her husband was in Vancouver and they actually went to Tojo's and had the Omakase! So I want them to do a guest blog article about the Omakase as my description above probably doesn't do it justice. If you need another excuse to blog.... ummmmm..... you two can blog about it together as a special Valentine's blog article, it'd be cute.... or something.

No pressure ... muhahaah.

Preamble

I'm going to provide some background information before I start. At work there's a dispute over which Japanese restaurant is the best in Victoria: Japanese Village or Yoshi Sushi. PLuM claims that Yoshi Sushi is the best while my boss claims that Japanese Village is the best. Both sides try to convince me that their restaurant is the best. They make it dang hard for me to remain neutral in this epic struggle. I was leaning towards Yoshi Sushi but I'm sorry to say PLuM, if you're reading this... I'm undecided again.

Dining At Yoshi Sushi

So tonight I went to Yoshi Sushi at around 7:30pm, and they were super busy so they seated us at the sushi bar. We waited 10 minutes, and no one had given us menus yet so we decided to help ourselves to the menus. A while later, one of the waiters came by to take our orders, and I went with one of the combination boats which consisted of: prawn and vegetable tempura, robata oysters, robata vegetables, teriyaki chicken, chicken karaage (japanese style deep fried chicken), green salad, and a few sushi rolls.

My salad arrived first and it was swimming in salad dressing. Lovely.... I guess they're really busy and they're not paying close attention to detail.... fine whatever. Shortly after my boat arrived, and the waitress said she would bring my bowl of rice and tempura sauce in a few seconds. I started working on the rolls because they had rice on it while I waited for the rice.

Let me take this time to tell you that rice is a staple of Asian cuisine (suprise, suprise). So, a meal for me doesn't start until I get my bowl of rice. You can't really start the meal because you're supposed to accompany your meal with rice; the sauces from the food is supposed to mix with the rice. Anyways, I slowly start attacking the boat, and my rice arrives about 15 minutes later. I guess the waitress forgot my rice which is why it took 15 minutes. At this point, my food is getting cold.

I start working on the robata vegatables which is basically a skewer of grilled vegetables. I bite into a piece of onion and it is severely undercooked. Bleh. It did wonders to my breathe, good thing I didn't have a date. I moved along to the teriyaki chicken which was nice. Next on the hit list was the delicious robata oysters which are oysters in a half shell topped with a lemony mayonnaise sauce and they grill it. That was the main attraction of the meal. This is one of the things you HAVE to order if you go to Yoshi Sushi.

The next thing I work on is the chicken karaage (again, it's like deep fried chicken). I bite into it and I notice a crispy outside, and a gooey center. Wait a minute.... gooey? That's not the way it should be. Why is this pink? Oh my.... this chicken is RAW on the inside, and I can see blood in it still. This would be fine if there was such thing like chicken sushi.... but there isn't. This was essentially a nice raw salmonella roll.... gah (no salmonella isn't a type of fish, it's a type of bacteria). So, that's the straw that broke the camel's back. This is one of those details that shouldn't be overlooked as it is a food safety issue.

As the waitress started clearing the table and asked how was everything, I showed her the raw chicken and she offered another batch of chicken. I decided to pass. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Anyways, they were very good about it; the waitress brought the food back to the kitchen to show them the raw chicken, and came back saying they'll reduce the cost of my meal. Okay fair enough, honest mistake, you were having a busy night.

When the bill arrived, my order was crossed out, and my bill was $0. That was nice, they didn't charge me for the meal because of the chicken. Free meal... awesome! Although I wasn't happy about the meal overall, their customer satisfaction damage control plans came into effect. Kudos to Yoshi Sushi for salvaging the dining experience. Congratulations, you're not on my blacklist.

Conclusion

Despite what happened tonight, I will still go to Yoshi Sushi as I am a long time customer. I will continue to recommend the place to my friends as it is a pretty good restaurant. Their menu isn't super expensive or super cheap, it's about right (compared to other Japanese restaurants.) There are a few joints that sell cheap sushi here in Victoria, but they're really really sketchy.

So back to my office's dispute over which Japanese restaurant is the best. My reasons for supporting Yoshi Sushi was that their quality is reasonably good, and their prices are lower than Japanese Village; however, I always said that Yoshi Sushi can be hit and miss. Tonight was a definite miss. Japanese Village however is more expensive, but they're also consistently good. [Correction] Actually, lunch at Japanese Village tends to be cheaper than Yoshi Sushi depending on what you get. For dinner, Japanese Village is definitely more expensive. For anyone considering trying out Japanese food for the first time, go during lunch time as it is cheaper overall. [/Correction]

My decision is that the two restaurants are at a virtual tie again. The office dispute continues. Who's cuisine shall reign supreme? Tune in next time to find out.

And if you're wondering, no I don't always go to expensive Japanese restaurants. I usually go once or twice every term.

P.S. If I infact get food poisoning, avenge me!