Happy New Year, Japanese Style…

In Japan, the first three days of January is observed to celebrate the New Year. Many businesses, restaurants, and stores are closed during this New Year’s celebration period. New Year’s cards are sent to family, friends, and coworkers to be delivered on January 1st.

The New Year’s celebration begins on New Year’s Eve and soba (buckwheat) noodles are served, which represents long life. Families then head out to visit a temple or shrine and pray for prosperity in the coming year.

New Year’s Day is full of joy and free of stress and anger. Everything should be clean, my grandma always told us (her grandchildren) that we needed to start the New Year clean, so we had to take a bath and clean our rooms before January 1st.

Ozoni is eaten on New Year’s Day, a special soup containing mochi (pounded sweet rice) that was made days before. Beautifully prepared, home cooked food is eaten for the first 3 days of January. There are a few items that have special symbolism:

1. Shrimp (Ebi): Long Life
2. Black Beans (Kuromame): Good Health
3. Herring Roe (Kazunoko): Fertility
4. Small Fish (Tazukuri): Good Harvest
5. Sweet Chestnuts (Kurikinton): Happiness
6. Red Snapper (Tai): Good Fortune

Tai or Red Snapper is a must for family celebrations and is served at these special occasions. UMI uses the Red Snapper to celebrate the sushi culture and being able to share this Japanese culture with mainstream America. Let’s celebrate the New Year by continuing to eat sushi, One Fish at a time.

UMI wishes you a Happy New Year and thanks you for your continued support!

Article by Jay Terauchi

2012 Olympics Commits to Sustainable Seafood

Organizers of the 2012 Olympic Games in London have announced that more than 90.3 tons of seafood served during the games will be “demonstrably sustainable.” You know it’s an important issue when the Olympic movement gets involved. We need to work together on this type of level to educate and make people aware of the current seafood situation.

Wonder if sushi will be served in the Olympic Village to the athletes? With the popularity of sushi around the globe, you know that the USA Team would be all for it. It’s funny, we have pizza delivery in the US, in Paris they have a lot of sushi delivery places, they use vespa scooters to make their deliveries through the streets of Paris.

Regardless, stay tuned to UMI-One Fish at a time for more 2012 Olympic updates. Let’s continue to eat sushi, One Fish at a time.

Sushi Repeats Itself in Tokyo

It's funny how history repeats itself. Back in the early days, authentic sushi was served in stands in Tokyo, they were about the size of today's hot dog carts. They had a limited number of sushi toppings and the customers would stand and eat at the counter. This style was called Edomae (Tokyo at the time was called Edo), so this was Tokyo style sushi. Once the customer was finished eating, they would be on their way. I guess we can say that sushi was one of the earliest forms of fast food.

At some Japanese restaurants, you'll see a curtain (noren) hanging over the doorway, this indicates that the restaurant is open. Sushi stands also had the norens hanging over the counter. Back then you'd know this was a good place by all of the customers wiping their hands on it. You can tell how good the stand was by how dirty the noren was, since they didn't have the Zagat or Citysearch at the time.

This standing sushi counter is located in Tsukiji, near the world's largest fish market, and very popular with younger women. Based on it's location, I'm sure the fish is really good. Can you imagine getting a quick sushi lunch at Penn Station in NYC or Terminal One at LAX?

Please continue to follow UMI and let's keep eating sushi, One Fish at a time.

Domo Arigato!

The World is Changing!

The organizers of the 2012 Olympics Games in London has announced they’ll serve fish that meets United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, which includes Marine Stewardship Council certification and the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) list of fish to eat.

Even the Olympic Movement is getting involved in this fish movement.
Please continue to follow UMI and let's keep eating sushi, One Fish at a time.

Read the full article at: http://tinyurl.com/y9dl2f5

TRUST ME: Chef Kazunori Nozawa of Sushi Nozawa

Some know him for the incredible fish that he serves in his Studio City, California restaurant and others know him as “the Sushi Nazi”. Nozawa-san is a sushi purist period. His menu doesn’t include sushi rolls, chicken teriyaki, spicy tuna, or even miso soup. What he does serve is simply the very best fish available. He’s a great chef, but many people don’t understand his TRUST ME motto.

Nozawa-san explains his TRUST ME philosophy: “I want to serve what American people like in the most simple manner, simple is the best. Anyone can make rolls because it’s easy. But my simple sushi is not easy.” Nozawa understands that customers have their own preferences, but he’s been making sushi for 46 years. He learned his style of sushi from his mentors and teachers and knew that this was the style he wanted to do. “When I started my restaurant, I wanted to do the style that I learned. If it doesn’t work, I don’t care because this is my style.” Nozawa-san is honoring the sushi chefs before him by passing on authentic sushi to the next generation. It would disgrace his mentors if he lost this philosophy and just made sushi for the money. Sure, he’s old school, but they don’t make chefs like this anymore. Why is Nozawa-san like this? He respects the hundreds of years of tradition and feels it’s his responsibility to keep this authentic sushi tradition alive. The marketplace is filled with rock ‘n roll sushi chefs, hundreds of crazy sushi rolls, and fusion restaurants, but there aren’t many places that you can rave about the fish quality or find true Edomae sushi (traditional style).




Early in his career, one customer told Nozawa-san that he didn’t like toro (Nozawa only serves bigeye and yellowfin tuna, he hasn’t served bluefin tuna since being in the U.S.). Nozawa-san asked, “Why don’t you like toro? Was it stringy at the other restaurant?” “Yes, it was stringy” answered the customer. “Toro” in Japanese means buttery and melts in your mouth, so the customer tried it Nozawa’s way. The customer was amazed and started trusting Nozawa-san’s recommendation from that point on.

True artists struggle during the early years and Sushi Nozawa was no exception. “In the beginning, we had no customers and when we did have customers we would argue because they had their own opinion on what they wanted” says Nozawa-san. It’s suggested that you order “omakase” at Sushi Nozawa, which means the customer is leaving it up to the chef to serve them the very best of the day. “To really experience sushi, you had to let the chef decide what was best for you. It was hard for Americans to do.” says Trevor Corson, author of “The Story of Sushi.” This isn’t new to Nozawa’s customers, as most of them would rather leave it up to him. I’ve been a Sushi Nozawa customer for many years and this is the one place that I’ve always left it up to the chef and haven’t been disappointed. It’s doubtful that the other people standing outside waiting to get in have been disappointed either.

Nozawa-san only serves the very best and if you use locally grown or caught ingredients, it’s even better. “It’s costly but you have to do it the right way. If it’s fishy, stringy, tough, or chewy, customers won’t come back. There are so many nice local fish such as barracuda, skipjack, bonito, Spanish mackerel, albacore, yellowfin tuna and the local sardines are great” says Nozawa-san. When he sees the faces of his customers enjoying this traditional style of sushi, he knows he doing it right. Since a lot of chefs don’t know traditional sushi, they can't educate Americans properly. Nozawa-san feels that Americans do enjoy authentic sushi; they just need to know what is right and wrong. Just like he’s done for the last 40+ years, he begins each day prepping the variety of fish he’s selected. When you combine his carefully prepared fish with warm sushi rice, along with his ponzu sauce, I’ll just say that it melts in your mouth. There’s a word in Hawaiian called “pono” and it means doing something in a correct & proper manner. When you prepare food in a pono fashion, it reflects in the quality of the food served. I guess it doesn’t really matter if it’s Hawaiian or Nozawa’s style; the result is still the same.

This honorable warrior is thinking about retiring soon, which will be sad for his loyal followers. On the top of his list of things to do when he retires is to get some much needed sleep. After all, he's been getting up early for years to make his daily 5 am trip to the fish markets. Unlike other chefs, he doesn't rely on the fish companies to make his selections and would rather pick out his own fish; this is why his sushi is so good. When he's caught up with his sleep, Nozawa-san is heading out to see the U.S. Don’t be surprised to see him behind the sushi bar in a rural area teaching his simple style of sushi. When he’s not on the road, Nozawa-san is partners in a sushi venture called “SugarFish”, Sushi Nozawa’s hip kid brother. With plans to open more locations, he’ll be busy handling the purchasing and quality control, which is very important to him. At least his followers can continue to get his TRUST ME menu after he retires.

“I have the best customers in the world and I appreciate them very much” Nozawa-san said as we were leaving. It wasn’t necessarily the words he used, but it was how he said it that made an impact on me. Kazunori Nozawa is one of the true Los Angeles sushi pioneers and we thank him for making us trust him.

In this day and age, maybe we need to be more open-minded and trust more…
Please continue to follow UMI and let's keep eating sushi, One Fish at a time.

Domo Arigato Nozawa-san.



Article and Photos by Jay Terauchi

One Fish at a time...

In today’s society, everyone is looking for a solution against global warming, international conflicts, alternative energy sources, saving the planet, human rights violations, and endangered animals. These are just some of the many causes that occupy our daily lives. Some of us tend to tune out, as there’s so much hard selling and finger pointing. In order to understand the issues at hand, one must first gather information. But, who has the time?

UMI is a non-profit organization with its purpose to “Share the richness of the sushi culture with mainstream America.” Who would have thought 40 years ago that sushi bars would be opening up all over America? With the recent sushi explosion, we need to educate mainstream Americans by providing correct information about fish that is used for sushi, One Fish at a time. Questions that frequently come up are the sustainability of sushi. As the mainstream culture in the U.S. continues to grow, we will improve the awareness of the entire sushi supply chain. Since most of the talk about sushi is fish related, we’ll concentrate on these topics, but will have other sushi related information too.

UMI in Japanese means Ocean and our efforts are One Fish at a time. An All Star Team of professionals has been assembled: Tetsuya Nick Sakagami is the fish expert. With his worldwide connections, he can track the demand and movement of seafood on an international scale. Jeffrey Nitta has owned and run many different types of restaurants, worked with chefs all over the world, experienced the growth of sushi firsthand, and has developed many food related promotions and events. Jay Terauchi is an experienced marketer, social media specialist, sushi evangelist, and chef.

The sun is rising and this is the beginning of a new day and time. Please join us for special articles and interviews as we educate and make aware of various sushi related topics One Fish at a time…

Domo Arigato.