Pretty interesting article I just read about sushi. I wonder if some of the cheaper sushi restaurants here in the bay area like Kitaro in SF do this also.
Oh well, I made sushi tonight though!
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Something fishy with the sushi
By GEOFF BOTTING
Shukan Post (Oct. 29/Nov. 5) It's late afternoon, and in Tokyo's ultratrendy
district of Harajuku, a long line has formed in front of a kaiten, or
conveyor-belt, sushi bar.
An electronic signboard informs those in the queue of a "30-minute wait,"
even though this time of day -- too late for lunch, too early for dinner --
is usually dead zone business-wise.
But ask the customers, and the reason why they are so keen on getting
inside, no matter what the hour, becomes clear -- sushi, long considered an
expensive delicacy, selling for nearly fast-food prices.
"It's great for me -- a bill for my family of four comes to less than 3,000
yen," says one breadwinner, who is happy to wait up to half an hour at the
Harajuku restaurant.
Another satisfied customer says, "We can try out all sorts of fish that we
don't normally eat, and we can get it really cheap."
It's those kind of perceptions that have made kaiten sushi one of the most
popular dining-out experiences -- not just in Harajuku but throughout the
country. The number of shops nationwide has ballooned to around 5,000, and
they do about 500 billion yen of business annually.
Yet Shukan Post detects something definitely fishy in all this. How can the
restaurants offer sushi dishes for such low prices, when their ingredients
sell for a fortune at the markets?
An extensive investigation into the kaiten sushi boom reveals some shocking
answers, which are explained in two long articles in successive editions of
Shukan Post. In short, the magazine finds, the business is riddled with
deception, in particular the flagrant mislabeling of fish and shellfish on
restaurant menus.
Take tuna, for instance. The two basic types are maguro, a sushi staple, and
the more expensive toro, which comes from the soft and fatty underbelly. The
former is red, the latter pink.
Toro is popular when prepared as negitoro, in which the fish is minced and
mixed with sliced leeks. Customers at sushi restaurants are often amazed at
the low price of negitoro, given that its main ingredient is such a
delicacy.
Or is it?
Not according to one chef at an exclusive sushi restaurant in Tokyo's
Roppongi district, identified only as "Mr A."
"That's just made by mixing the red [maguro] with oil," he says.
In fact, it's a special type of oil sold to sushi restaurants: The oil is a
pale yellow, resembling the color of margarine, and turns red maguro into
the light pink of toro.
According to another expert sushi chef, one "Mr. B," the differences in
flavor and texture between this concoction and the real thing are miles
apart.
"Real negitoro uses dai-toro [the best toro of all], so it has a neutral
sweet smell with a maguro flavor. It melts when you eat it," he says.
"However, this [fake] type of negitoro has an oily smell and no trace of
maguro flavor. Fish oil melts at body temperature, but this is like eating
oil."
It's a similar story with many of the other varieties of fish served up at
kaiten sushi bars.
Nile perch, which inhabits rivers in Africa, is passed off as suzuki, a type
of sea perch found off Japan's shores. The former sells for around 20 yen a
pair at wholesale markets in Japan. Suzuki sells at 45 yen a piece for
farmed fish and 90 yen for the wild variety.
Awabi, or abalone, one of the most popular types of shellfish among sushi
aficionados, is often just roko-gai: A similar-looking, but not
similar-tasting, shellfish commonly found in South America. Their wholesale
prices are 770 yen per pair compared to 60 yen, respectively.
Shukan Post lists five types of fish and three types of shellfish that are
commonly substituted by cheaper products.
The magazine pins much of the problem of menu deception on fierce
competition among sushi bars, which has induced operators to slash prices to
infeasibly low levels.
"If you want to sell an item for 100 yen, it's going to be extremely
difficult to use the real item," says an executive of a seafood distributor,
whose name is not disclosed. "This has even led to the development of a
market of substitute fish just for kaiten sushi."
Shukan Post's disclosures are sure to disappoint many a kaiten-sushi fan.
But then, they should have realized long ago that if something is too good
to be true -- "like toro at maguro prices" -- it probably isn't.
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I never liked that conveyer belt sushi stuff... some of that stuff that goes around has been there for hours... 
Sushi bar only!! 
