interviews

I've been interviewing for sushi jobs since I finished school last week. I made sure to get a few interviews to practice on before I got an interview for the job I really want. 7 interviews... 6 of them practise since I get really nervous when I want something - and I got job offers from them all. That 7th one is the job I really wanted and haven't heard from. That kinda bums me out. Even with those 6 practise interviews, I still got super nervous and it didn't go so well. Strange thing though, since I knew I didn't want those 6 other jobs I wasn't nervous at all, which is probably why I got them.

Back to the real world. I kinda get tunnel vision when it comes to jobs so since I didn't get the one I wanted it really doesn't matter where I work. Maybe I'll pick from one that I got... Or go on more interviews. We'll see.

japanese cuisine and culture

Went to a Japanese cuisine and culture festival this afternoon. It was sponsored by the Japanese Restaurant Association and the California rice commission. Lots of food - noodles (somen, udon), nigiri, sashimi, sukiyaki, tempura, crepes, yakitori, even beer and sake tastings. It was kinda cool since I'd been wanting to eat sashimi the past couple of days.

One of the demonstrations was a bigeye tuna - it was 150lbs and it was cut up and served as sashimi. The guy was quick! It probably took him 15 minutes or less. Then he had his helpers cut it down into serving sizes.

I also saw sushi machines. You put the rice in the machine and one makes rolls and the other makes nigiri - and even puts it in plastic. I figure maybe for airplane food?







150# bigeye tuna

huge bowl of ikura (salmon roe) plated in rice bowls with shredded nori - like in scattered sushi.

sushi roll machine



















nigiri machine













nigiri finished product - packaged in plastic from the machine

finals

Today was finals. Along with the written we made 3 dishes each... a signature roll, appetizer and a combination plate of nigiri and tuna roll.



Signature roll - cheddar cheese, avocado, tomato concasse, crab, sesame leaf - tempura battered with plum and honey siracha sauce.












appetizer - mackeral bird nest croquette. In the croquette is mashed potato with shredded mackeral with panko crust, deep fried with a persimmon ginger dipping sauce.

I was so consume with ensuring my ingredients were fresh and all in season, I didn't realize my error until I started my testing - both dishes are fried.






combo plate - tekka roll (tuna roll) with halibut nigiri












Class: L-R
Cheuk, Jason, Jake, Sensei Andy (in black), Danny, Dai, Nick (asst chef instructor), Lorraine and I










Now graduated - with certificate

That was a quick 2 month course. I'm thinking I'll be staying in the LA area but still job hunting and open for options.

veggie nigiri

Today was vegetable nigiri day... after disecting the worms from the beltfish. Thankfully! I think everyone ate their veggie nigiri although some of the guys pan fried their beltfish and had that for lunch instead of raw.

L-R: kaiware (sprouts), eggplant with plum sauce, avocado, carrots, cucumber and soy beans, green onion with miso, roasted red pepper, asparagus.

it waved at me

Ok, so I grossed my classmates out again. It was unintentional - really. Today's assignment was a belt fish also known as a scabbard fish. We were cutting it down into filets, one classmate cut away one side and I cut the other filet but once I got the portion off, I noticed some dark looking round things in the meat and asked Sensei what they were. Uh, worms... oh yum... why is it I get the wormy fish? So I had to pick the worms out of the meat and prepare it for sushi. Most times, this fish is a cooked item but if tried as sushi, it has a distinctive flavor that some people (Sensei) likes. Me? Uh, I tried it last week and gave it away - the good thing is all the leftover sushi that we don't want, we give to Ouchi, the school office manager, who usually takes it home to his family. Oh... and if it's cooked more than likely you've eaten a worm. Good protein source, eh?

Last Friday we had an assignment on pompano nigiri. Pompano is this cute little fish - I think posted a pic of this fish skeleton... we deep fry the skeleton and eat it like chips. Anyway, everyone's assignment was complete and we were ready for lunch. (We all sit down together and eat like a family meal). As I looked down at my soon to be lunch, I saw this worm... it was standing up on end and waving at me. Literally, I'm not kidding. (Although it was a bit funny so see the color drain from my classmates faces). I guess I didn't do a very good job killing off all the worms - it's kind of a wormy fish. Sensei just told me to kill off the worm and eat the sushi anyway... needless to say, no one ate lunch that day - we all lost our appetites.

A few weeks ago, as we were doing our class assignment I had a worm crawling around on my plate. That time though, we all carved up the fish and put it in a big tray so I don't know who cleaned that fish but I ended up with it. It was a little baby worm - but the guys didn't eat their lunch that day either.

So far, there's been 3 worms found and yeah, guess who's been lucky to find all of them? It makes me wonder... if I am the only one to find worms in the fish, perhaps my classmates have eaten the worms unknowingly? I can't be the only one! Could I?

Out of my own evilness - I've posted Friday's lunch for you. By the time I got my camera the worm crawled down from the nigiri on the right and is in the middle of the two nigiri.

My friend... the worm.

jackfruit versus durian

I think jackfruits and durians are in the same family. They kinda look alike. Jackfruits are big pine coney things with tons of pokeys... and durians are little pine coney looking things with tons of pokeys.

Some of my classmates said in Vietnam, people put fences around the fruit trees. I thought maybe perhaps they were claiming the wild tree but they said no... the fence is suppose to protect people from dying. Ugh! Dying? When these fruits are ripe, they fall off the tree. Getting hit on the head by a pokey thing can surely cause brain damage, if not instant death. Ouch - that's gotta hurt a little! So when harvesting, people wear hardhats just to be sure they are protected.

I ate a jackfruit and thought it was delicious. People either love it or hate it. There's no in between. It stinks and in order to tell it's ripe, it stinks real bad. Real bad - like rotting onions. But if you like mango, peaches and bananas - that's what it tastes like (to me) if you ate all three fruits at the same time. Real yum, I think. Kinda like eating a ripe peach - texture wise.

Durians on the other hand. Well, I went to the Asian market and bought one thinking it was a jackfruit since it was huge. I usually see little durians... never big ones. So I got it, brought it home and read the tag... claiming it was a durian. Never had it before but had heard you either love it or hate it. These too stink REAL bad, when ripe. So I cut it open and ate it. This is like creamy egg custard like texture which is good. But the taste... yuck! To me, it was like eating a nice sweet banana and garlic - at the same time. Maybe it wasn't quite ripe yet? It was stinking up the kitchen... In some places in Southern Asia, durian is prohibited in public places because of the stink - to some people love it and other's, it totally offends the olfactory sense.

sushi - nigiri and box

It's been a few days since uploading pics of sushi. We've learned a couple types of fish and have been practising on cutting a whole fish down into usable pieces for sushi.







sushi - red snapper, sea bream, abalone, imitation crab



bottom row - box sushi with tuna, avocado and tobiko; egg nigiri (tamago)








box sushi - we make this kind of sushi in a box then cut it into squares. This one is tuna with wasabi mayonaise, kaiware (sprouts), tobiko, honey siracha sauce and siracha mayonaise.








sushi -

top row nigiri - tuna, albacore, salmon, scallop

bottom row - spicy tuna temaki (handroll), spicy tuna roll and scallop








oysters - one in a 1/2 shell with ponzu, chili radish and green onion; the other is a shooter with quail egg, siracha, green onion and lemon wedge










appetizer special - toro tartare. Toro is the best part of the bluefin tuna - it is the belly part of the fish. Tartare originates in Russia (Baltic states) and is a coursely ground, high quality beef mixed with salt, pepper and herbs, topped with an egg. In this case, the dish is fusion - substituting toro for the beef, garnished with green onions and topped with a quail egg and ponzu sauce.




nigiri - saba (mackeral), mussels, ama ebi (sweet shrimp) and aji (spanish mackeral)

a few days ago, i had a picture of an overgrown scallop liver. these two are normal sizes although different colors - one red, one brown. (See September 25, 2007 blog titled "nigiri").

Time is flying by! Graduation is next week - 8 more days of practice then the real world. I'm still unsure of future plans except to say I'll be in the sushi world. While prcrastinating on the job front, I do have a few ideas. I guess we'll both be finding out where the next home will be at approximately the same time... or stay in Southern California and become a beach bum. Hmmm, options.

disneyland

Whew! Still recovering alittle from the weekend. Last Friday, was mid-term day already. That means 2 more weeks until graduation... unbelieveable. Time is passing so quickly. Anyway, as a treat I went to Disneyland. It's only a few miles down the road from where I'm living and hear their fireworks display every night. I hadn't been there in a long long time - since I was a kid. Could it be almost 20 years ago? Wow. I'm old! Hehehehe. It was fun. There were alot of new rides I'd never been on before. Then there were a few rides, I'd been on before. Space mountain is a roller coaster in the dark. I'd been on it before but it had been fixed to take tighter turns, go faster and be darker.

There's this new concept called fast pass. You can only get one at a time but you get the ticket and don't have to wait in line as long. You just return at the time the ticket tells you and you maybe have to wait 10 minutes for the ride. I think the longest wait we had was 35 minutes without the fast pass, which isn't bad at all. It was a very nice day but tons of people - old people, young people, kids and tons more of kids being pushed in strollers. I got my toes ran over by strollers, stepped on, hair pulled... way too many people for me.

duck tongue

Tonight was an interesting dinner. Most of the classmates got together to hangout in Chinatown - this is a 'modern' one, located in a different town. If I didn't know it was Chinatown, I would have thought it a regular part of town with a few Chinese stores. It was all spread out and we actually had to drive to different areas.

Anyway, one of the classmates works in a Chinese restaurant and we've been wanting to try authentic Chinese food. Guess I'm willing to try almost anything once. We just picked a bunch of dishes that were recommended by our classmate. He did a pretty good job... one of the entree's was duck tongues - literally, with basil, black pepper and veggies. It was good. There were other duck tongue dishes but supposedly the tongues stink really bad and kinda ruins your appetite - basil reduces the smell so we went with that one.

I should have taken a picture for you for the proper visual. (hehehe) Oh and kinda raw chicken. It's called the House chicken special. It looks raw - the meaty part is real pale, the skin is on and looks raw as with the bones - the marrow is bright red. It really is cooked but on real low heat for a short period of time, air dried (I think) for a bit and returned to the low heat. Honestly, I had a hard time trying that one.

semi round fish

Still getting the hang of making the nigiri (rice balls). We get timed every day to get faster. Amazingly working with the nigiri - some of the classmates have forgotten how to roll sushi... they put too much rice in it and it doesn't close. So we get timed on our cucumber rolls as well. 8 nigiri in 2 minutes and 2 cucumber rolls in 2 minutes are the class goals. For me, the timing is not a problem butI still cut crooked... when you look at my rolls, they are more trapezoid shape. I think I just rush myself becuase when I'm not in a rush they turn out okay.

In the meantime, we're learning how to fabricate various fish. Today, we learned how to cut semi-round fish - like the red snapper and sea bream.

nigiri - shrimp (ebi), sardine, sea water eel (anago) and avocado eel roll

nigiri - sea bream (tai), red snapper, salmon skin temaki, sea water eel (anago), pike mackeral (samma)