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

If you have ever wondered how the fish in the display case starts out here ya go!

This is suzuki (new 30cc model)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v199/Bistro2930/Picture011-2.jpg

japanese fish scaler
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v199/Bistro2930/Picture012-2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v199/Bistro2930/Picture013-3.jpg
After scaling cut behind the head and through the spine then repeat on other side
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v199/Bistro2930/Picture014-3.jpg

Start at the rear end and slit tward the head.

Before we opened in January, I had my whole core team working with me, training at the restaurant in Eau Claire. I knew with all of the bad habits and the lack of outside chefs in the twin cities area it would be best not to hire locally and have to correct bad habits. I'm not saying there are not good chefs in the area, but the top chefs are already employed at good establishments — such as Nami's, Origami's, and Fujiya — and out of respect of the owners I would not try to steal their chefs.

Saturday, March 1st at 6:30 p.m. we will be hosting a sake educational tasting, a Sake 101 of sorts. We will have three sakes and possibly a namazaki. The three sakes that will be available have a deep and long history, along with taste. Shichihon yari is Japan's oldest brewery, founded in 1540 — before Tokyo was even a city! To date, it is still run by the same family members and with only a staff of four producing the sake in small batches.

Ninety-nine percent of the Mahi Mahi sold in the U.S. mainland comes from South America, and it is transported on trucks in very slow 3rd world process, so by the time the Mahi reaches the U.S. mainland it has a lot of shelf life on it already and the quality is very poor. Many people do not get a very good impression of Mahi because of this, and they would not think that Mahi Mahi could be a Sashimi fish. However, in Hawaii it is highly prized as a sashimi fish.

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.