The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

It seems that not even ten years ago sushi was hardly known, or worse in smaller communities it was known as "bait." And if you asked someone if they liked sushi or if they had eaten sushi, the typical response was, "What suesheee??? Nahhh, we don't eat our bait!"

Now if you look around today sushi is everywhere! Spreading like a wildfire, sushi restaurants are popping up in every community. Grocery stores are jumping on the band wagon, and even American restaurants are being influenced with a bit of sashimi or tuna tar tar, etc.

Like anything else that gets popular with rapid growth, the core is often forgotten, lost, overseen, or simply ignored.

Spicy tuna: Spicy tuna came to be because when a tuna loin is cut down you will only get about an inch or so of good meat left before the skin because the amount of fascia (white connective tissue) is too chewy for it to be used for nigiri, sashimi, or even a roll.

Because it is good meat, and sometimes even great if it's fatty, and it's toro, we take a spoon and scrape the meat to separate it from the fascia. The end product looks like ground beef and is then made into spicy tuna.

I've had a few customers complain that our spicy tuna is too soft or mushy. Well, that's because it's not frozen chunked tuna; this is the real deal!!

On that note, if you go to a sushi bar and see spicy hamachi, spicy scallops, spicy this or that, it's not good because they are not turning the fish and as its starts to stink it's masked with spices and sold, when it should be tossed.

Cheers,

Henry C,
Giapponese