SushiMonsters.com Blog

Last year, when we talked with chef Ken Yamamoto of Seattle’s Shiki Restaurant, he told us these wise words about amaebi (also known as sweet shrimp):

According to Yamamoto, restaurants that offer amaebi year round are doing something significantly wrong. Amaebi should never ever be white or chewy. It should always be clear, crunchy, and pop in your mouth.

So there you have it, kids. Look for your amaebi keeping those things in mind.

Amaebi at Bento Sushi in Ballard. It wasn’t particularly good.

Good restaurants will serve you fried amaebi heads with your amaebi nigiri.

Evidently, the fact that the Western world is now “into” sushi is having a huge impact on the world’s tuna population.

The Australian government alleged in 2006 that Japan had illegally overfished southern bluefin by taking 12,000 to 20,000 tonnes per year instead of the their agreed 6,000 tonnes; the value of such overfishing would be as much as USD $2 billion. Such overfishing has resulted in severe damage to stocks. “Japan’s huge appetite for tuna will take the most sought-after stocks to the brink of commercial extinction unless fisheries agree on more rigid quotas, wildlife campaigners warned today” stated by the WWF. - Lifted from Wikipedia

This is not NEW news; it has long been alleged that stricter quotas for tuna fishing need to be set into place. But because of its current relevance, this issue is remaking headlines this week.

READ ABOUT IT ON THE TIMES ONLINE or READ ABOUT IT AT UPI.COM

Read about how Greenpeace hopes to help the world’s tuna supply.

So as for you… what price would tuna nigiri have to be at before you would be willing to stop eating it?

Soaring crop prices are hitting countries around with world, with Indian farmers committing suicide and Haitian residents eating mud cakes to survive. In the United States, we have been largely free from worry, and we continue eating just as we have before. Elsewhere in the world, people are rioting due to the lack of access to food. Click here to see the results from a Google search for “food riots” and you’ll see just how serious it is.

But finally, we are actually starting to feel the repercussions in the United States, by just a LITTLE bit.

Worried about rising prices worldwide, customers have been stocking up, prompting Sam’s Club to limit sales to no more than four bags. Costco is considering a similar move.

The global run on rice has hit U.S. shores but appears limited to big-box warehouse stores. Customers concerned about rising rice prices have been cleaning out the shelves at Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Sam’s Club and Costco Wholesale Corp. stores.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL STORY BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

In the U.S., we have the opportunity to preemptively strike and buy up stocks of rice if we feel like there might be a looming crisis. People in other countries don’t get that luxury. Who knows what kind of effect the lack of rice will have on sushi, but when weighing it against everything else that is going on in the world, it seems rather unimportant.

Bratz Tokyo-A-Go-Go! Sushi Lounge, at Amazon.com

This toy is not new, but it is hilarious. This conveyor belt eatery has over 40 funky pieces, including chairs, a revolving sushi table, chopsticks, and a karaoke stage, complete with a mic. Of the 12 reviews on Amazon.com, 11 give it 5/5 stars and only one gives it 4/5 stars. OMG AMAZING.

But wait! THERE’S MORE!

What good is a Bratz Tokyo-A-Go-Go! sushi conveyor belt without the Bratz themselves?! These Bratz are dressed up, Tokyo-style, and come with a huge amount of accessories and goodies.

BUY FIANNA!

BUY CAMERON!

BUY YASMIN!

We here at SushiMonsters really like to eat sushi. But as you can imagine, it gets a bit expensive sometimes. The solution to that? Eating at restaurants that are good and cheap at the same time. They’re somewhat rare, but they’re certainly not foreign.

One of our favorite restaurant chains under the “cheap and good” umbrella is the Marinepolis Sushiland restaurant chain. But, as with all chain restaurants, it varies from restaurant to restaurant.

Above: Seattle’s branch of Marinepolis Sushiland on a hazy, rainy, cold ass afternoon.

In the Seattle / Puget Sound area, there are four Sushiland locations within driving distance (well, SANE driving distance, anyway). There’s the location in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, the Bellevue location, the somewhat newly-opened Redmond location, and the brand-newly opened Tukwila location.

Here’s the lowdown on the local Sushilands.

BELLEVUE MARINEPOLIS SUSHILAND
Bellevue’s Sushiland used to be good, but has gone downhill in recent times. Due to its proximity to the downtown area and its tiny size, there is almost always a wait. And to be blunt about it, it’s subpar compared to the Redmond and Seattle locations.

REDMOND MARINEPOLIS SUSHILAND
The Redmond location is clean, big, well-serviced, and more comfortable than the other Sushilands around. The sushi chefs seem to enjoy their jobs and always seem to be having a good time. Sometimes there is music, dancing, and singing on the part of the sushi chefs, but they’re always doing their job. Variety, freshness, and good times about in this Sushiland.

SEATTLE QUEEN ANNE MARINEPOLIS SUSHILAND
Seattle’s Marinepolis Sushiland is rather small and nearly always has a wait as well. The service is a bit shotty at best. But the major perk of the Queen Anne Sushiland is its selection. Unlike the other Sushiland locations which, at most, have one “Special” of the day, this Sushiland has about five or six per day. And they are all different and inventive. Of all of the Sushiland locations around, it is probably the most vegetarian-friendly and diverse.

TUKWILA MARINEPOLIS SUSHILAND
Perhaps it is due to its being a new restaurant, but Tukwila’s Sushiland needs a lot of work. For now, their food is subpar compared to the others, but at least they have a ton of workers…?

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To keep it timely, we went to the Queen Anne branch of Sushiland today. Its specials included a wasabi-mayo topped eggplant tempura nigiri, a sweet mayo and onion-topped salmon nigiri, an eel and avocado maki sushi roll, and a big eye tuna (aka ahi — although the people in the table next to us thought it was ‘pink eye tuna’) nigiri.

SALMON NIGIRI TOPPED WITH ONION AND MAYO
This is something we hadn’t seen before, so of course, it needed to be tried. Sushiland usually has pretty decent salmon, and in this case, the onion and mayo somewhat overpowered the salmon. Compared to the regular salmon nigiri, the regular salmon nigiri was better.

EEL AND AVOCADO MAKI SUSHI ROLL
Nothing new in the world of inventing sushi rolls, but it was good to see this kind of variety at a Sushiland, because it was our first time seeing such a thing at one.

For those of you who have not been to Seattle yet, Seattle has this thing called a Space Needle. It’s pointy and tall, and for some strange reason unbeknowest to us, people like to go up it. It’s largely a tourist thing, though.

Around the Space Needle is this thing called the Seattle Center. It’s for tourists too, but locals actually go there for music events, food events, international events, and all sorts of random miscellaneous events.

We are Seattle locals, and what better day to go to a Cherry Blossom Festival than on a day when it has SNOWED?? AND HAILED?! IN APRIL?!!!

So, in the name of searching for food and such, we headed on over to the Seattle Center. Sushi? Takoyaki? Feed us things. Surely there will be good food, right?

Not so.

Not so at all.

The Seattle Cherry Blossom festival started in 2005, so you’da thunk they’d gotten it down already. People needa eat. Give us food that is good. Good us food that makes Japanese people look good.

You think Japanese food and you automatically think sushi. You think ramen. You think tonkatsu. You think……….. well, all sorts of goodies, really. But the only thing closely resembling sushi they had was spam musubi (and that wasn’t even until what? 3pm? Not even lunchtime!). The closest thing they had resembling ramen was an instant kind you find in styrofoam bowls. They also had a beef and onion stirfry like you’d find at Yoshinoya, but come on. :[ That’s like, Japanese fast food. And not the good kind of fast food.

Some people sitting, getting ready to watch a musical show! They got the performances down. But not the food, dammit.

Gotta love community involvement displays. This above post-it cherry blossom tree was called a “Blossoming Cherry,” and was done by Jason Puccinelli. It’s a mosaic of paper squares, essentially. The point? So festival goers could answer the question, ‘What Does Springtime Mean To You?’ A great idea that got people of all ages and ethnicities participating.

… On a final note, the cake is a lie. So was thoughts of finding good food at a Japanese cultural festival. :[

By now, just about everyone knows who Rachel Ray is.

To be fair, Rachel Ray SHOULD know what sushi is by now also. But she doesn’t. I mean, it’s not like she thinks a slice of turkey breast is sushi, but she does make beginner sushi confusion mistakes.

We at SushiMonsters decided to watch the Food Network on a Friday evening, for Rachel Ray’s top restaurant picks in the Los Angeles area. It was for her show, “Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels,” and she went to a restaurant called Sushi Katsu-Ya (which has a very unimpressive website, by the way).

What’s pictured above is something Rachel Ray called sushi. It’s not sushi, kids. It’s seared tuna with a hefty cute little tower of avocado. Close enough, but it’s not sushi.

Nonetheless, despite Rachel Ray’s being confused on the subject, the restaurant does look pretty promising. Both of the above dishes are $15 each — more on the expensive side but not unbelievable considering the portions and the plating.

But back to Rachel Ray. I mean, her mix-up is disappointing but not all that surprising when you think about it. Rachel Ray calls St. Louis “St. Louie” and parmesan “parma-gee-ah-no”. But a world-renowned chef SHOULD know better, shouldn’t she?