Now all we need is a little Lego soy sauce.

Via UniqueDaily

The other day it was a maid cafe in Culver City, now we get word that naked sushi has made its way to Clearwater, Florida.

CLEARWATER — Chef David Keir looks out over the crowd in the dark, smoke-filled lounge, then slowly slides the model’s black kimono off her body.

She’s wearing the smallest of G-strings and tiny flower-shaped pasties. Slowly, she lies down on a small upraised stage.

Illuminated by an overhead light, Keir, 35, places bamboo leaves covered with bright sushi rolls on her nearly naked body. First on her right upper leg, then her left thigh and, finally, her chest.

A line of customers, almost 30 deep, waits in eager anticipation for the free sushi and the accompanying show.

Though the practice seems tame compared to some of the stuff you can freely download on the Internet from U.S. sources, naked sushi seems to leave a bad taste in the mouths of some Americans. Protesters shut down a naked sushi show in Seattle, claiming it was demeaning to women. Clearwater officials have checked out their local version of naked sushi, however, and have declared they see nothing wrong with raw fish in the raw.

[P]olice have checked for violations and didn’t find any.

And officials with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which licenses restaurants, say Keir hasn’t violated health requirements.

Even Mayor Frank Hibbard, who convinced Hooters’ owners in 2006 to reword a sexually suggestive billboard, says he’s letting this one go. He says little about the event other than, “I wouldn’t eat sushi off anyone’s body.”

Chef Keir claims that his naked sushi presentation is “my expression of art.”

“Every time Picasso had a girl pose nude in one of his paintings, was that demeaning? No, I don’t think it was,” he says.

Inside the Dirty Martini, the patrons, half of them women, agree.

Thanks to Mr. Pink.

This post is not directly about Japan, but it is about sushi, so I think it just makes the cut.

Koi restaurant in New York City has added a very pricey sushi roll to their menu- the High Roller.

A chef brings the sushi roll to you table side, shaves white alba truffles and drizzles 100 year old balsamic vinegar on top of the roll.
The other high end ingredients include: Hudson Valley Foie Gras, Langoustine (a smaller version of a lobster) brushed with saffron/vanilla bean butter and finally, no expensive meal is complete until it is encrusted with cavier.

What will this “High Roller” cost you? $1000!! I say fly to Japan and get real sushi instead for that amount!

Via Luxist

These hotaru ika are so called because they supposedly glow in the dark (hotaru means firefly). I couldn’t get anyone to tell me which part of the hotaru ika glowed and certainly they weren’t glowing while dead and on a plate. But nearly every meal I had last week included hotaru ika.

I ate these little squid nearly every way possible: as sushi, baked, steamed. Several times they were served with bamboo shoots, which are also “in season” in that they are young and fresh and very tasty right now.

Later, I found this photo which answered my question as to which part of the squid actually glows. It would be something to see these in the sea.

Anyone else enjoying foods of the season?

It’s a good source of calcium. And quite tasty.

What with USB sushi memories, sushi police, giant sushi, and the difficulty of making sushi in outer space, it’s not surprising that Japan Culture Lab has created a how-to video on the correct Japanese way of consuming the traditional raw fish and rice treat. Actually, the video may be somewhat satirical and not to be taken that seriously. Most of its advice may actually be spurious. Or not.

The two main actors are apparently a comedy duo in Japan called Ra-menzu (Rahmens). The Japan Culture Lab has made a whole series of these, which are used as training videos for the sushi police and other government agencies, as well as to instruct the uninitiated in various aspects of Japanese culture. None of them should be believed, but they’re funny anyway. Samples are available on YouTube.

Probably this link has been posted before–but I couldn’t find any evidence. Even if so, if anyone missed it they will surely be amused by this series of videos.

I came across this today and it’s a must see. A customer placed a digital camera on the conveyor belt at a Sushi shop in Tokyo and managed to capture a few seconds of each customer enjoying their meal.

Only in Japan:

Something shaky is about to hit Japanese meal tables — poisonous giant jellyfish!

Wobbling its way onto the Japanese cuisine are huge Echizen jellyfish, which have been appearing in massive schools flocking off the Sea of Japan coastline and gorging on more palatable fare, like prized maguro tuna.

“Making them a popular food is the best way to solve the problem,” Shunjiro Ueno, a professor at the National Fisheries University in Shimonoseki, tells Sunday Mainichi.

I am not so find of the overpopulation of cockroaches in my house……Eureka! Cockroach stirfry!

In a bold move that has many people very upset, starting early 2008 the government of Japan will be sending out “Sushi Police” across the globe to Japanese restaurents to determin if that particular establishment is worthy of being called “Japanese cuisine”.

In what is being billed as an attempt to protect culture, the government is reacting to what appears to be many complains from Japanese citizens who have traveled abroad and where shocked by how they found their cuisine represented in other parts of the world.

Unofficially, the Japanese are reacting to the global take over of Chinese and Korean run Japanese restaurents.

Japanjin has an interested blurb on this news as well available here if you’d like to read further into it. There is also an interesting blurb on this story HERE on this website.

This could go one of two ways. Firstly, it could force low rent “Japanese restaurents” to up the quality and service of the food they are serving. Or two, it could be an entire waste of money and come to absolutly nothing.

Either way, if the sushi police are looking for volunteers, Count me in !!

That sushi do’s and don’ts from a few days ago reminded me of this sushi series that came out a while back. I thought they were pretty interesting. And if there is one thing your friends will appreciate, it’s you analyzing the chef’s body hair next time you go out for soosh.

You may notice that sushi chefs usually do not have hair on their arms. Every piece of sushi has to be produced from clean plain looking hands and arms. Chefs, I think, shave every day, unless there is some kind of industry-secret to deal with it.

Note that I linked to the last article in the five part series. The geniuses at Bayosphere don’t link to the subsequent articles from part one, so you need to use five as a home base. What the hell is a “bayosphere,” anyway?

Here’s a good one for the muckamucks who would have everyone believe that there is a one and only “proper” way to eat sushi — chopsticks with a built-in soy sauce well!

No more worrying about whether your tuna should be facing upward or downward when its hits the sauce. Simply select the morsel you want and squeeze a few drops out of the end of your chopstick onto the fish before you pick it up.

And this is not just some gadget being foisted upon an uninformed public by some hairy barbarian, either. These soy sauce dispensing chopsticks are available in Japan on the Japanese Internet shopping site Rakuten.

Via Popgadget>

Check out this absolutely hilarious video on how (not) to enjoy sushi in Japan.

Though this video is an obvious spoof, I wonder whether it will turn up one day as a serious documentary on Hong Kong TV. . .

Thanks to Lord George Nathaniel Curzon over at Coming Anarchy.

The Michelin Red Guide to New York restaurants has just come out and three “Japanese” eateries have made the list. They are:

1. Masa
2. Jewel Bako
3. Nobu

I’ve never been to Masa because I can’t imagine paying the astronomical price ($350 prix-fixe). Jewel Bako is wonderful. But Nobu? I realize this is a completely unscientific poll, but I don’t know any Japanese in New York who think that Nobu is all that great. The one and only time I went, I was extremely disappointed. The fish was decently handled – not overcooked – but the rice for the sushi was hard, the fish in the sushi only moderately fresh, and the rice in my bowl had clearly been put in with a spoon that scraped the side of the dish, leaving a sticky streak. My Mom sure as heck wouldn’t have let the kitchen staff get away with that!

Lots of people have pointed out that most of the best New York restaurants, according to Michelin, are French, and perhaps that accounts for their rating system. It may also account for the fact that they missed a lot of fantastic restaurants – perhaps they just aren’t familiar with Japanese cuisine. Be that as it may, Japanese food is definitely rising in popularity in this most trend-obsessed city, and New Yorkers are starting to catch on to what is good.

2006 Zagat’s guide, for example. Japanese food is now the most popular Asian cuisine, and new restaurants are opening quite rapidly. Some are sort of gimmicky, like Megu and Ninja, but others are serving really fantastic, authentic food with kaiseki menus. The Japanese language New York based paper, Japion, is constantly advertising for help in these eating establishments. I was talking to a friend the other day, who is contemplating a move back to Japan, but he said he really wants to stay, because things are starting to finally get easier and easier in New York, by which he meant there is more and more good food.

If you are in New York, or coming this way, here are a few fantastic restaurants to try. (And I must give full disclosure; most of these recommendations came to me initially by my food obsessed hairdresser Omae-san, who always knows what is good before anyone else does).

1. Aburiya Kinnosuke is the sister restaurant to Yakitori Totto. Kinnosuke is pretty new, and has a great prix-fixe menu for $45 which is kaiseki style. If you call in advance, you can reserve the $60 prix-fixe menu. The sashimi meat here is fresh and will knock you out. The fact that they don’t cook a ton of meat means that the air in the restaurant isn’t oily and heavy; the fish is always light and tender. Check out the matsutake tempura if it’s on the menu. Try the sesame pudding for dessert. The atmosphere is wonderfully relaxed, and the service super nice – attentive but not overbearing. You can get a little side room and have some privacy, which is perfect for stretching a wonderful meal into a long indulgence in conversation and sake (try the unfiltered).
2. Try the aforementioned Totto, and be sure to try the beer on tap. There are other yakitoris in New York, like Yakitori Taisho, which I also like. But for food, I have to say, Totto is the best. They used to be something of a secret, but the word has started to get out.



3. Learn the word “omakase” (roughly pronounced oh-mah-kah-she). Then head over to Hedeh and ask for it. Trust me. You won’t be disappointed.
4. Use the word “omakase” at Kai, which is has a fantastic kaiseki dinner. If the price scares you, try the lunch, which I promise is also fantastic. Kai is an interesting restaurant. It belongs to Itoen, the tea company, and naturally the tea served here is also good. If you sit at the counter, you can watch the staff at work. Everything I’ve had here was amazing, with some photos as proof.

Whatever you do, we at Japundit implore you not to think that Nobu is the epitome of great Japanese food in New York. Nor should you have to pay $350 for a superb dining experience.

Suzumo Machinery Co., Ltd. of Japan has announced a new robot that can produce wrapped sushi at a speeds up to 2000 pieces an hour.

The sushi is wrapped in a special film that is designed for easy removal before eating.

A separate printing module can be added to print the preparation date and a company logo on the wrapping.

Via The Raw Feed

A Tokyo-based humorist, in an online commentary titled “So You Want to Be a Sushi Snob?”, offers this advice on eating sushi outside Japan:

The second thing to remember about dealing with sushi snobs in the United States is that there are no good sushi restaurants in the entire country. Nope. None. Zip. Nada. They don’t exist. So being a sushi snob in the USA is kind of like being a cowboy in Tokyo: A tad bit ridiculous, wouldn’t you agree? A halfway decent sushi restaurant [anywhere in] Japan blows away the best you got in New York or Los Angeles. Okay, well, I do know of one good sushi restaurant in L.A. But you’d have to be out of your mind to pay US$250 for some sushi that you can get anywhere in Japan for US$15. . .”

A recent study suggests that the meat-based “Western diet” and the traditional salty “Japanese diet” are equally bad for you in terms of colon cancer — especially if you are a woman.

Researchers in Japan found that among more than 42,000 adults followed for 10 years, women (but not men) with either a Western pattern of eating or a diet heavy in traditional Japanese foods like salted fish and pickled vegetables had a higher risk of colon cancer compared with women who were deemed healthy eaters.

The survey studied the effects of three dietary patterns: a “Western diet” high in meat, poultry, cheese and bread and butter; a “traditional Japanese diet” of rice, miso soup, salted fish and pickled vegetables; and a “healthy diet” of fruits, vegetables, soy products, beans and dairy.

Both the Western and traditional Japanese diets doubled the risk of colon cancer among women, while the healthy diet showed no link to colon cancer.

Now all the time can be sushi time thanks to the creative genius of Noriko Kuwabara.

Noriko started making sushi clocks back in 1993. At first she thought that a sushi clock would be as easy as buying artificial pieces of sushi and gluing them onto a tray, but she soon found out that it would not be that easy. She ended up making each individual piece by hand to suit her own specifications and. . .

Voilà! The sushi clock was born.

Since then, Noriko’s menu of clocks has grown to include regular and deluxe sushi tray themes, as well as a dim-sum clock, a manju (Japanese bean filled bun) clock, and even a donut clock.

She says she has ideas for more, but filling orders for her current models keeps her too busy to build them.

Each one of Noriko’s creations is crafted with hour markers that she painstakingly sculpts and paints by hand. Timekeeping is powered by Seiko movements that run on a single AA-size battery.

Click here to find out more.

According to Reuters, an Osaka man who claimed that his state benefits do not provide enough money for him to eat properly stormed into a convenience store with a knife and threatened to commit suicide on the spot unless he was provided with sushi.

The man was arrested after spending about an hour in the store eating bananas, and drinking alcoholic drinks and vitamin drinks.

JP

Are memory hungry applications eating up your computer’s hard disk space?

Why not feed your computer a little sushi?

Each of the pieces of sushi in the photograph is actually an external storage device (128MB or 32MB) that plugs into a computer’s USB port.

Pieces can be purchased individually for 8,200 yen for the 128MB pieces or 6,000 yen for the 32MB pieces, or you can buy the entire set of ten pieces pictured here for 71,760 yen.

You can find out more here, but only if you read Japanese.

Now I know there are probably some of you out there who might suspect that I have a sushi fixation. Actually, however, there are just so many zany sushi-based products out on the market that it is hard to keep up with all of them.

There are the latest additions to the JAPUNDIT sushi gallery — sushi pillows!

Go here to see more.

Thanks to Boingboing!

JP