WARNING: This entry includes a link to a video of me making sushi. I’d just like to say right now, I’m no Julia Child—but dang, I sure felt like one. Now I want my own show on the Food Network.
"You see him slapping it?" asks Trevor Corson, pointing toward the chef at Sushi Taro, who is giving a good whack to a slice of clam. "That's because it's alive."
At a good sushi restaurant, the freshest octopus and clams are squirming just moments before they are served. One final beating makes sure they won't get up and crawl away ...
So begins a very cool article on the front page of the Post’s Food section. A Post food writer, Leigh Lambert, read an advance copy of The Zen of Fish, called me up, and suggested we visit four of DC’s best sushi bars on two consecutive nights to compare the experience at each. Talk about a plum assignment.
The results were fascinating. Eating at different restaurants back-to-back, I was amazed at how varied the experience and food was at each place. What I noticed most of all was how different the rice was at each location.
Leigh also came up with some clever tests for the chefs—for instance, seeing how much the experience changed once I started speaking Japanese partway through the meal. Read the article to see her full report.
The Post also asked me to visit their executive kitchen on the top floor to film a sushi-making video (from which the above still is taken) for the Post website. I’m no chef, so I simply tried to give people tips for making sushi at home. I have to say, it was a blast. Watch the video.
