Eating Tasty Sushi With Western Twist: Gen Sushi
People who fear to try a conventional sushi, thinking that it consists of raw fish, can feast on Gen Sushi. Gen sushi, or New Generation sushi, came into existence with the blend of western tastes and has a variety of vegetables and cooked dishes including scallops and tuna, for the timid people who wish to experience sushi. A few things should be kept in mind if you are thinking of trying gen sushi.
Gen sushi has taken on a decidedly western technique when it comes to sushi creation, adding area-specific ingredients and changing the shape, size and presentation format laid out by Japanese inventors. Crazy combinations of ingredients can be found inside sushi rolls, with names like the Caterpillar roll, Spider roll and even the style of sushi has changed.
The traditional Japanese reverence for good quality food in small portions has dissipated in America, with sushi bars deferring to the American-sized appetite and attraction to colorful food in big portions.There is a specific way in which sushi should be eaten, whatever form it may be in. There are methods to eat sushi in a polite manner in the Japanese culture, and it is also observed in the western restaurants as well.
For instance, sushi should never be passed from one set of chopsticks to another when you are sharing your sushi platter with friends and family, as it is considered as uncivilized and unmannerly to do so at dinner. This custom is observed only at funerals in Japan.
Carefully place your chopsticks on the edge of your plate or in the provided holders. Chopsticks should not be placed on the edge of your plate with its base touching the table. Similarly, never whittle your chopsticks.
You should also be careful as to the amount of soy sauce you take, as it should be not more than you need, so it does not get wasted.
Soy sauce should only be used as much as required for leaving even a tiny amount of food on the table means serious disrespect for the sushi chef.
You can generally find gen sushi at a specialty sushi store, but many grocery stores and Asian markets do have it in stock as there is a growing demand for it now. You can also try gen sushi at a restaurant, as many chain restaurants are now open that are special only for their style of sushi. Also, some American sushi options will also be found at a traditional sushi restaurant, though that variety would be less than at a gen sushi restaurant.
Ingrid Preube
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Tags: cooking, food, recipes, restaurant, sushi
Restaurant Write-ups: Regal Heights Bistro in Toronto
The windshield wipers of our car are trying to slap away the pouring rain that’s turned this part of Corso Italia into a place full of gravel and dirt, as we make our way towards the Regal Heights Bistro on St. Clair, just east of Dufferin. The streetcar track/road improvement project on St. Clair Avenue West is still not finished, reducing the traffic to one lane. Fortunately it looks like everybody else stayed at home in this bad weather, so the traffic is light and we find a parking place just across the street from our bistro. First we have to walk across the no-man’s-land of cracked pavement and orange cones, and then I can finally squint at the building where I think the Regal Heights Bistro is housed. After a brief look, I have to observe: “There’s no sign, there used to be a big sign, and it looks like a pub inside. I hope this is still the right place.” “Yep – Regal Heights Bistro,” my partner confirms, pointing at a small hand-lettered sign inside the front window, and we notice the trademark Jazz Brunch sign as well.
Just after we cross the threshold, a hostess is already waiting to seat us, and we may pick a place according to our wishes. At eight fifteen, the restaurant is about a third full, with most patrons seated near the bar area. “Are you here for the fist time? The original sign blew down, and the new one we put out on a chalkboard was washed away by the rain.” “Tonight you are going to have lots of fun, there’s a birthday party and a jazz band is coming.” So now we are reassured we are indeed in the right place, though when I look around us, I can see more of a pub than an upscale bistro interior, with the smell of French fries in the air. We examine the menu and my partner is disappointed at the two-sided affair we’re presented with.
“They must’ve changed their menu,” he observes with a sad face. Maybe as an elitist jazz musician himself, he is just uncomfortable about the prospect of a live band. I re-read the restaurant name written at the top of the menu just to make a hundred percent sure we are in the correct place. The Bistro doesn’t have any internet pages (at least I couldn’t find any) and the only information available on the internet I found were some really positive reviews and a few posted menus including dishes such as caprese salad, provencale escargots, chicken liver pate, smoked salmon crepes and black squid ink linguine. I don’t need a menu to tell me that no homemade black squid ink linguine is coming out of this kitchen. When we look at the current offer, we can see it’s mostly typical pub food, if a bit gussied up by some special flavours and toppings.
Our hostess comes back to take our order and I observe that the menus are very different from what we found online – what happened? Different owner? “Oh no, it’s still the same ownership,” she replies reassuringly. “Well, we haven’t updated the website in a long time, our menu has stayed this way for the last few years. Just the chefs have been changing a lot here. Our focus is always on fresh food; we shop every day, we cut our own meat, we prepare our own burgers, there’s no microwaves…we just wish to have more of a free dining feel.” Although the whole pub is definitely casual, including the paper napkins, when I see the wall signage from around the world, I would still expect a bit more sophisticated gastronomy.
“We shrink from that term gastro-pub,” she laughs, putting us at her ease with a charming, nice manner.
Want to read the rest of the story? Here you can find the whole Regal Heights Bistro review.
Tags: Regal Heights Bistro, restaurant, review, Toronto