Now Playing: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

While molecular gastronomy is at the cutting edge of food technology, sushi remains the state of the art.



Directed by David Gelb, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" is the story of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, considered to be the world's greatest sushi chef. His non-descript 10-seat sushi bar in Tokyo's Ginza subway station is the only sushi restaurant in the world to be awarded 3 Michelin stars. Reservations at Sukiyabashi Jiro must be made at least a month in advance, with some patrons having made reservations the year before.

Jiro serves only sushi. There are no appetizers or desserts. He doesn't like the idea of guests filling up on other food and ending up having only three pieces of sushi.

We were astonished to see just how much preparation went into producing the deceptively simple morsels. It all starts with the best and freshest ingredients from vendors that specialize only in that particular item, say tuna or shrimp, and ends with a 20-item, 15-minute meal for a price starting at 30,000 Yen (approx. 350 Cdn.) That's easily the priciest meal in the world if you're counting by the minute... and it's in a subway station!

He is really finicky with going above and beyond, such as when he massages an octopus for 40 minutes instead of the usual 30. I know, 30 seems excessive already. I didn't even know they did that. He also has procedures for keeping his rice at body temperature. Jiro is such a perfectionist that it took an apprentice 200 attempts at making egg sushi before Jiro was satisfied and called him a Shokunin (artisan).

I think the distillation of expertise used in making his sushi is like building a car. Let me illustrate that point. Again, it starts with the best ingredients. Fishermen bring fish to the auction, where Jiro's regular fishmongers pick only the very best. As his tuna vendor would say, "if there are only ten fish, there could be only one best, and I'll buy that one." The fishmonger can now sell Jiro the choicest cuts of the choicest fish. Jiro considers himself a sushi chef and not even close to as knowledgable as his suppliers in sussing out the best and freshest ingredients. His job is to bring out the best in the seafood and deliver that essence to his diners. Car companies don't really make most of the car, they only do final assembly and marketing of sub-assemblies made by the likes of Magna and Delphi, which in turn have other suppliers down the line making more basic components.

Come to think of it, Apple doesn't make iPhones either. They're assembled by a Taiwanese company called Foxconn in China, with parts made by Samsung of Korea and Elpida of Japan... but I digress. Jiro says after years of working hard and passing on the expertise to his son and staff, by the time the sushi gets to him it's already 95% done. The quality and skill resides in the chain, and that's the point I was getting at.

There are funny moments in the movie, like when Jiro's sons were kids and couldn't afford to buy Coke. They finally were able to buy one and.... I won't spoil that part of the movie.

There are also serious lessons to be had, like hard work, pursuit of excellence, and satisfaction with your station in life no matter what your vocation may be.




The movie mentions that it takes 10 years for Jiro's apprentices to master their craft. That reminded me of Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule from his book Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours or around 10 years to attain mastery of one's domain.



The best part of the movie is just gawking at all the delicious pieces of food art, and thinking one day maybe I'll find such umami elegance in my mouth, and asking questions like: Why do they looks so perfect? Why does the tuna look translucent? Why isn't Jiro making sushi in Toronto?

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a surprisingly good movie, being both informative and entertaining. The singleminded pursuit of perfection and diligence in his calling seems like such an honourable path to follow were it not for the sacrifices it inflicts on one's self and those around him. Nonetheless, the existence of people like Jiro make life much more interesting for the rest of us.


Posted by: Mark Rodas


Jiro Dreams of Sushi is now playing at:

TIFF Bell Lightbox
Reitman Square, 350 King Street West, Toronto, ON - (416) 599-8433

Great sushi in the GTA

Against all odds, I love sushi. Despite never eating fish or sea creatures of any kind until I was almost 18 (my mother was deathly allergic so we never had any such stuff in the house), I have really taken to pretty much every type of seafood imaginable.

In rounding up my favourite sushi restaurants, I have to note that I'm totally aware there is a sushi strip on Bloor St., but so far I have to say that favourites remain outside of that strip, with two of them still being in the downtown core and one of them being WAY outside that strip - it's technically in Markham.

Here's a quick round-up of three of my very favourite sushi restaurants. (All links below go to a Google Map so you can see where the restaurant is.)

Daily Sushi: (Right beside Carlton Cinemas at Carlton and Yonge Sts.) Mark recommended this place to me, and it's pretty good. Cheap, central, and the sushi tastes fresh. I recommended this place to a colleague and she loved it.

Nagoya: (Kennedy Rd. and 14th Ave.) Okay, so I cheated a little on this one, because it's an all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet so we were ordering up much more than sushi: Breaded scallops, teriyaki dishes, a pretty tasty beef and green onion dish, etc. but the sushi here really is amazing.

The handrolls were not what I envisioned them to be - they came in cones of crispy unsoaked seaweed paper and you could pour your wasabi-laden soy sauce right into the cone. The salmon, avocado and cucumber one was amazing. Their soft-shell crab rolls were good too.

Nijo Sushi: Even though it's a tiny hole-in-the-wall on Huntley St. beneath an apartment, their salmon (my favourite type of fish for sushi) is to die for. It's cheap and fresh and portion sizes are bigger than what you expect from a typical sushi place and it's near my work and not far from my house ANDDDDD (as if this sentence could run on any longer!) they always give me something complimentary with takeout, usually edamame. What more can you ask for from a sushi place?! I think I'm in love!

Yours in food,
-Stacey

Turnover of Toronto restaurants: A love/hate situation

I both love and hate the fact that I will never get around to all the restaurants in Toronto. On the one hand, there's nothing better than knowing I will live in this city the rest of my life (woohoo!) and will STILL never get the "restaurant blahs" because there is always something new and exciting to try. Maybe next on our list will be dining in the dark - shout-out to my coworker for letting me know this one will be opening soon: http://www.thestar.com/living/article/649452.

On the flipside, restaurant turnover in this city makes someone like myself a little nervous. I still remember running to the "Susur" part of Susur Lee's two namesake restaurants once we caught word that he was leaving for N.Y. He trained chefs in his place, but still, we needed the Susur Lee experience before he left forever (okay, really, I hear he still comes back to town now and then, but again, I'm a total food loser, and I had to get there before he left or else I'd somehow feel cheated... I know, not logical, but the propsect of missing out on good food makes me irrational!). So we frantically called day-in and day-out to get a reservation. We got in, and the food was pretty good, but I think I'm still haunted by the wall lined with Colonel Sanders statues painted all white (yes, THAT Colonel Sanders, the one of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame). I was also panicked (okay, really, I think I'm overexaggerating, but please don't pin me as shallow or bizarre for being panicked about a restaurant closing!) when I caught wind of Scaramouche potentially closing, and made sure to get there in time. That's where I tasted the best scallop of my life... see? I have reason to get crazy when I hear a true Toronto culinary institution might be closing! It might be the best food I've ever tasted! I even freaked out when an obscure Indian buffet near my house closed with no notice but I realized it had just moved further down the street, so I still have a chance to go there... I hope... oh wait, here comes the paranoia, maybe it closed today and I didn't even know haha!

I think turnover gives me all the more reason to want to document the places we've been as a public record of their tastiness.

All that said, here's a preview of what's to come:

• Our picks for the top three sushi restaurants in the GTA.
  
• An update on Mark's birthday dinner at Bocca on Baldwin Street (we've all had good lamb and bad lamb... we'll fill you in on what the lamb experience was like at Bocca).
  
• Some out-of-town photoblogging (we recently went to Moto in Chicago, home of reknowned gastronomic chef Homaro Cantu, and had a 20 course 5-hour-long meal. Pictures of every course were taken and Mark typed the info down on his phone so we'd remember what was in each amazing dish).
  
• Also watch for Taste of the Danforth updates in August plus some guest-blogging from other food-obsessed friends of ours.

Yours in food,
-Stacey