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  • Sake 101

    Saturday, March 1st at 6:30 p.m. we will be hosting a sake educational tasting, a Sake 101 of sorts. We will have three sakes and possibly a namazaki. The three sakes that will be available have a deep and long history, along with taste. Shichihon yari is Japan’s oldest brewery, founded in 1540 — before Tokyo was even a city! To date, it is still run by the same family members and with only a staff of four producing the sake in small batches.

    Watari Bune is amazing because we shouldn’t even be drinking this sake! The reason for this is that the watari bune rice was grown in 1868-1912 and early showa. Because this rice grows tall it is harvested late, and most of the crops were damaged by typhoons. The war caused it to fall out of use even further due to crop difficulties and food shortages.

    After learning about this extinct rice, Yamauchi-san, the seventh generation director of the Huchu brewery, started his hunt. His hunt for the rice ended when it was discovered that the Ministry of Agriculture had this strand of rice in criovac storage. From there he returned with fourteen grams of rice and went to the old farmers to help him grow the rice. Eventually, the process was perfected and watari bune sake was born!

    Yuki No Bosha was founded in 1903 by Yataro Saito and is now managed by the fifth generation president, Kotaro Saito. Located in the Akita region, rustic and tranquil with harder water than southern Japan, this sake is lively with bold rich aromas balanced by a crisp, white pepper finish.

    Namazake: Nama is a word you should know! Trust me. Nama is just unpasteurized sake. It must be constantly refrigerated, consumed within a day or two of opening and is only available seasonally. The trade off for all this is that nama is known for it’s fresh, young, bombastic taste!! This sake is currently on its way from Japan, and if it makes it here on time we will soon be tasting this rare sake not normally found in the United States.

    This is a free event, so please pass the word!

    Cheers,
    Henry

  • Monster

    Benjamin Blake is a freak. He is part of the new freshman class of Adelphus & Smyth Financial. He is also absolutely out of his mind. He likes to walk around his apartment with his dress socks over his hands, making his fists talk to each other. The left is always his supervisor TJ Anderson and the right is the sock version of himself—or Monster Ben, which is what he likes to call it. The hands bicker back and forth, always ending in an argument where Monster Ben seizes TJ Anderson’s neck in a death bite, punctuated by his left hand’s fading scream. Monster Ben holds TJ Anderson’s neck until pins and needles let him know it is time to stop.

    Benjamin is an award-winning triathlete who has never been beaten in an amateur sprint triathlon. He likes to ride his speed bike around Lake Calhoun until the creases of his pelvis bleed. He likes to rub Vaseline between his toes, under his groin, and over his nipples before he goes for blistering fifteen-kilometer runs at two in the morning. He likes to swim the butterfly stroke at full speed, until rolling waves seep over the lane lines and swamp the lungs of lap swimmers. After exercising, he likes to stand naked in front of the mirror and call himself a stupid, fat motherfucker until he wants to beat his reflection into bloody glass. He lies awake in bed at night, fantasizing about college girls in tight pink leather tying him in a monkey knot, facedown on his Ikea dining table. They pound the muscles in his back with Wiffle bats and plastic hockey sticks until the chinks in his spine finally set. Each time they hit him, he gives in more and more, until he can no longer hold back from touching himself.

    Benjamin remembers his first day at Adelphus & Smyth Financial. He had been on time, but the rest of the class showed up late—some in wrinkled business wear, some in business casual. TJ Anderson, their new supervisor, stood at the front of the room frowning. Every time a freshman straggled in, his frown deepened. The information Benjamin had read on TJ Anderson said that he was a third-year team lead, two steps away from junior partner and invincibility. TJ Anderson had climbed the corporate ladder quickly, and it showed, because when he cleared his throat the freshmen immediately quieted. Benjamin closed his mouth and breathed through his nose. The slender girls pressed their legs together.

    “The alpha male is the leader of the wolves,” said TJ Anderson. “So, if you kill a deer, you go out of your way to bring me a bite. And not just any bite. You bring me the prime rib. You bring me the filet mignon.” He paused. “Ladies, ignore this next part… Guys, if you pick up some hot ass in a bar, you let me hit it first. Understood? You are my little insignificant omega bitches. You do what I want, when I want. Okay, ladies, you can listen now.”

    He pointed to the door at the back of conference room 2B. Their heads followed his fingers. “That is the cat door back there. If you can’t handle this, feel free to walk out. Understand, though, no man or woman walks out the cat door—only pussies.”

    When Benjamin laughed, TJ Anderson asked him, “And what is your name, tons-of-fun?”

    Benjamin told him.

    “That’s refreshing to hear you laugh, 7,” said TJ Anderson. “I’m glad to see such positivity. You know, it’s that type of attitude that moves employees ahead, laughing at alpha wolf’s jokes. But, you have to realize, 7, I wasn’t joking with you. I was being quite serious. If I were telling a joke, I would say that you would get out of here before midnight on Friday. Now that’s a joke.”

    The List of Rules for incoming Adelphus & Smyth freshmen:

    1. First-year employees of Adelphus & Smyth will make an annual salary of $65,000 and a silver-level benefit package. There are no set hours of work per week and first-year employees are not eligible for overtime or comprehensive return time.

    2. First-year employees are required to pass the five parts of the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) examination by their third year of employment or face termination.

    3. First-year employees must carry their Adelphus & Smyth cell phone at all times. At night, first-year employees must tuck their Adelphus & Smyth cell phone into the covers of their bed or sleeping area.

    4. First-year employees will have three goals in life: pass the CPA examination, become an Adelphus & Smyth partner, and run a marathon in more than four hours but less than five hours.

    5. First-year employees will spend their free time either: studying in groups or individually for the CPA examination, eating or consuming alcohol with other Adelphus & Smyth employees, fantasizing about becoming an Adelphus & Smyth partner, sleeping, pursuing a life partner, or running on a treadmill between speeds of four to six miles per hour.

    6. If the first-year employee is male, he will consider the Dave Matthews Band his favorite musical group. If the first-year employee is female, she will consider Kelly Clarkson her favorite musical group. If the first-year employee is not of European descent, he or she will consider Ben Harper his or her favorite musical group. Other musical varieties may be appreciated as long as they are on the playlist of an Adelphus & Smyth-sponsored varietal station.

    7. First-year employees will not exceed their physician-recommended body mass index.

    8. First-year employees will not say the word “fuck” in any of its versions or tenses more than five times a day if they are male and five times a month if they are female.

    9. First-year employees will wear nothing less expensive than a $400 suit (not including tie, shoes, and undershirt) if they are male, and a total outfit worth no less than $550 if they are female (the price of shoes, bras, and panties may be included, but all bras and panties must be purchased from a Victoria’s Secret lingerie store and must be generally acknowledged as at least “kind of sexy”).

    10. First-year employees will submit to all senior members of Adelphus & Smyth without question.

    “And in case you’re wondering,” said TJ Anderson. “That means me.”

  • Pharma Chameleon

    I have it all, from common afflictions (rashes, allergies, Sasquatch-like body hair) to those seldom mentioned in polite company (other types of rashes, irritable bowels, acid reflux, nighttime hog snore) to the just plain gross (dog breath, compacted sinuses). Thanks to modern medicine, I am generally successful in masking or suppressing the worst symptoms of these conditions—from public view, at least.

    That changed last month, however. In a perfect storm of embarrassment, my wide-ranging array of personal hygiene supplies and prescriptions all ran out at the same time. I was forced to go to the pharmacy at the newly remodeled Edina Super Target on a Saturday. It was buzzing with action. I took small comfort in hiding behind my oversized Bono-ish sunglasses, worn partly in an attempt at coolness, but mainly because one eye has a growth that eventually will blind me. (Sweet! I’m bringing back the eye patch!)

    First, I hoisted a keg of Metamucil into my cart, where it sat like a giant orange beacon signaling “middle age.” Next up: Tums (I keep them in a pretty dish and eat them like holiday mints), Imodium Plus (now with Gas-X!), Prilosec (for the heartburn), and Gold Bond Medicated Powder. Then it was time for my “wookie” products: new razors (my wife feels she’s married to Chaka from Land of the Lost), ingrown hair treatment (that’s a don’t ask/don’t tell situation), and smoothing gel for my hair (which otherwise resembles a Chia Pet). Moving on, I went for my dog-breath eliminator, a mouthwash strong enough to double as paint stripper; Secret women’s deodorant (my armpits break out like a hornet’s nest if I wear men’s); a jug of Purell hand sanitizer; Alavert decongestant (otherwise I sound like Snuffleupagus), and eucalyptus mint bathroom spray (a nice gesture for my wife, since I had used so much “gingerbread spice” the previous week; she now hates Christmas).

    Hanging around the pharmacy counter was the usual gathering of wintry ghouls: Minnesotans of all ages burdened with hacking coughs, honking noses, and general snot-encrusted misery. Retrieving my order, a cranky pharmacist noticed that the entire plastic tub for “S” names was filled with my prescriptions. She plunked it down at the cash register, sighed dramatically, and proceeded to loudly name-check each item as she rang it up: “Anti-inflammatory for the colon, anti-fungal powder, allergy nasal spray, asthma inhaler, steroid cream for eczema …”

    When I got home, I set out all my purchases on the kitchen table and wondered, When did I become Beetlejuice?

    My wife walked in, took one look at the bounty, and spotting an opportunity, seized it. “Murphy is constipated and he needs an enema!” she announced, referring to our three-year-old son. “I’m too embarrassed to buy the kit. Can you do it?” It was as if she were summoning some bastard superhero.

    “No problem,” I replied. I have become immune to humiliation. In fact, my myriad ailments have given me great strength. My son’s overfull bowels only filled me with compassion. I drove back to the pharmacy beaming with pride. For the first time in my life, I felt healthy as a horse.

  • Dvorak and Rachmaninoff

    Dvorak’s Cello Concerto is a romantic work of unabashed grandeur, with a lush and lyrical first movement, a pensive and ethereal middle, and a swelling, pile-driving, rondo-form finale that briefly pauses to dredge up elements of the first two movements before coalescing into a passionate crescendo. Sommerfest artistic director Andrew Litton will conduct Scandinavian cellist Truls Mork, who recorded the work with the Oslo Philharmonic for Virgin two years ago. Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances is the perfect after-intermission refresher, a neat mixture of romance, rhythm, and modernism. Like the Cello Concerto, it benefits from being one of the later works of its composer. Walton’s fun, quirky and deceptively difficult Scapino Overture leads the program. 612-371-5656; www.minnesotaorchestra.org

  • Why do people think you’re strange?

    Editor Julie Caniglia Apparently I ask rhetorical questions unrhetorically.
    Senior Editor Brad Zellar You tell me and we’ll both know.
    Assistant Editor Christy DeSmith I don’t dress my age.
    Online Editor Cristina Córdova Oya wima wima, Yansa wima wima oko to bembe aseni.
    Art Director Evangeline Johnson I sing silly made-up songs—poorly.
    Production Manager Lisa Pahl I think I’m smart.

    Contributors
    Ann Bauer Probably because I don’t care what people think.
    Jeremy Iggers They do?
    Colleen Kruse Faces get ugly when I’m alone.
    Stephanie March I love peanut butter and mustard sandwiches.
    Oliver Nicholson I am English.
    Britt Robson I don’t leave home without my trademark penny loafers.
    Peter Schilling, Jr. Because they’re meanies.
    Copy Editor Katherine Lewis I watch TV in a union suit, pitch helmet, and snorkle.
    Proofreader Judy Arginteanu I do the Tinklenberg dance.

    Interns
    Haily Gostas I don fake moustaches at whim.
    Christopher Hontos I’m not very good at eye contact, that’s probably why.
    Tyler Jensen I can sing Salt-n-Pepa’s “Shoop,” in it’s entirety, at a drop of a hat.
    Tricia Towey Because I look at them strangely.

    Publisher Tom Bartel Because I read Batman comics.
    Associate Publisher Kristin Henning I can’t imagine; maybe my double entendres?
    Controller Cindi Barthel Don’t know. Don’t care. Guess that’s why.
    Circulation Manager Joe Kvam Freakish features?

    SALES AND MARKETING GROUP
    Kela Caldwell Turkey dancing face!! Haaaaa ha ha!!!
    A.J. Kiefer What? I’m sorry. I’m busy eating toenail clippings.
    Elton Langland Elton=mirror. People see only themselves in me.

    Sales Coordinator     Mary Olson I put the “ass” in “assertive.”
    Online Sales Administrator Matt Bartel Because I’m my mother’s child.
    Online Coordinator Jennifer Havrish ‘Cause I am.
    Systems Admin/Network Guru Kristopher Wilson Was a hobbit the year after I was a dinosaur.

  • Chris Fujiwara

    Smart as Hitchcock, incisive as Wilder, and independently minded as Cassavetes, Otto Preminger remained largely peerless during his career. He was one of the first Hollywood auteurs to challenge censorship rules and explore his own vision—one populated with honest studies of drug addiction, sexual deviance, and corrupt politics. As an establishment director, he introduced an anti-cinema subversion that inspired the Cahiers du Cinema crew. Unfortunately, many will only remember him for his role as Mr. Freeze in the original Batman TV show. Film historian Chris Fujiwara’s exceptional biography aims to change that with an analysis that achieves the seemingly impossible: It actually manages to inspire the reader to take another look at Exodus.

  • Meyer Lemon and Ricotta Cake

    1 cup sugar
    1 1/4 cups ricotta
    3 eggs, separated
    2 Meyer lemons, zest and juice
    1 1/4 cups flour
    1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
    2 tsp. baking powder

    Glaze and Candied Lemon Topping
    1/3 cup Meyer lemon juice
    1 2/3 cups powdered sugar

    3 sliced Meyer lemons
    2 cups sugar
    2 cups water

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix ricotta and sugar. Beat in egg yolks until creamy. Add juice of both lemons and zest from one. Mix in the flour, cardamom, and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold whites into the batter, taking care not to overmix.

    Pour batter into a buttered and floured 9-inch round cake pan. Bake for about 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then invert onto cooling rack.

    For glaze, heat lemon juice and powdered sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.

    For candied slices, heat water and sugar to a gentle boil, simmering for 5 minutes. Add lemon slices and cook for 5 minutes, until lemons have softened. Remove lemons with a slotted spoon and transfer to parchment paper.

    With a skewer or toothpick, poke holes in the top of the cake, then pour warm glaze over it. Some will sink in; continue adding until you’ve used all of the glaze. Sweetly place the candied lemons on top.

    STEPHANIE MARCH
    3

  • Citrus Sensation

    Some people have gone out of their way to make a perfectly good Fuji apple smell and taste like a grape. They call it a Grapple. There are also those who feel that plums should taste like apricots and that apricots should taste like plums, hence the booming pluot and aprium markets. Needless to say, when I first heard of Meyer lemons, I assumed they were a breed of fancy Frankenlemons created at some technologically advanced Meyer Institute of Frilly Fruit. Like a fool, I snubbed them.

    But they were hard to ignore, as the “Meyer lemon” moniker began popping up on menus everywhere. If chefs were going to pedigree a dish with this name, I figured this citrus was worth a try. It was only when I tasted the faint orangey sweetness and breathed in the floral scent that I understood what a contribution this fruit was.

    In 1901, a man named Frans Meijer left Amsterdam for America, where he became Frank Meyer. Working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he traveled the world in search of new plants to introduce to his adopted homeland. During a trip to China, Meyer found a common potted ornamental plant that bore a small citrus fruit resembling a cross between a lemon and an orange. While the plant had most likely been cultivated for over four hundred years, this year marks its centennial in America, having been introduced here in 1908 as the Meyer lemon. (Intriguingly, while traveling the Yangtze on a riverboat on a subsequent trip to Asia, Meyer fell overboard and drowned under circumstances that the USDA still notes as “a mystery and source of speculation.”)

    Meyer lemons, which are available from November to April, never hit the big time as a commercially viable fruit product. A virus nearly wiped out the trees in the 1940s. Even though a hardier Meyer Improved strain was developed, the fruits remained thin-skinned, and too tender and juicy to withstand rigorous commercial handling and shipping without costly waste. And yet, find me a food that has been deemed lacking in mass appeal, and I’ll show you the next great ingredient with chef-appeal.

    Alice Waters and her ilk regarded this small zesty fruit as a gem, and the rest is all talk shows and cookbooks. Chefs and home cooks have found it to be an amiable companion to many dishes that a regular lemon might overwhelm. Although no one really knows, it’s the suspected cross with a mandarin orange that gives this citrus a new depth of flavor. Personally, I can’t help but think of cardamom whenever I cut into a Meyer.

    To get over the shame of my initial snubbing, I threw myself into a wholehearted culinary exploration of this fruit. Starting simply, I squeezed a tiny section onto a Malpeque oyster and discovered a new balance of coppery, salty, tart, and sweet. Marmalades and baked goods made with Meyers were beautiful, but almost too easy, too girl-next-door. So I tossed zest into pasta with salmon; I braised chicken and artichokes with whole quarters; I made a zippy version of gremolata, which I proceeded to eat on pork and beef—and then bread and anything leftover in the fridge.

    In the end, what I have added to my larder is a flavor that is tart but not sharp, luscious but edgy, and able to play to both savory and sweet dishes. Hardly worthy of a snub.

  • Survival of the Fattest

    Dr. Charles Billington divides his obese patients into two distinctly different groups: those who have choices, and those who don’t.
    “Demographically, we know that people in lower socioeconomic areas are greatly, disproportionately affected by obesity,” he says. “Folks in those lower-economic, lower-education situations have little or no access to whole foods. They also have a lack of options.”

    A tall, lean, full-bearded man, Billington is laconic, more like a North Dakota farmer than a famous research doc. “When it comes to entertainment and reward, people with more money can go to the theater or to concerts; but the lower you go on the socioeconomic scale, the more important eating becomes relative to other affordable activities. We in the privileged class can join a gym, whereas lower-income people who want to exercise will probably end up at a community center, where there isn’t much. What it boils down to is this: Highly educated people with money tend to know how to change their lives. But people from a lower income and education bracket often feel a lack of self-efficacy, which means they feel like they have less ability to affect their own situation.”

    In other words, it’s not simply the lack of grocery stores full of affordable fresh produce and whole foods that makes it harder for poor, inner-city residents to stay fit (though this remains a significant factor). It’s also lack of empowerment: Poor people have been conditioned to accept their circumstances—which all too often include growing fatter with every passing year. Billington is working to change that.

    As an endocrinologist, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, the team leader of the obesity program at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, associate director of the Minnesota Obesity Center, and a nationally recognized expert on weight-related disease, there’s no question that Billington has an impressive track record. What makes it even more so is that he was warned early on (he is now fifty-four) that his chosen career path was a dead end.

    Thirty years ago, when he graduated from medical school, Minnesota’s obesity rate was less than ten percent and “real” doctors didn’t think of obesity as an important area of study. Medicine had perfected drug therapies for treating chronic weight-related illnesses such as type 2 diabetes. When then-young Dr. Billington began telling his diabetic patients to reduce their body mass through diet and exercise rather than simply inject more insulin, he was branded a bit of a nut.

    Today, however, his concerns are shared by leaders from the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Association. More than twenty-three percent of Minnesotans are now considered obese (that is, they have a body mass index greater than thirty), and nationally—especially in urban, low-income, Southern communities—it’s ticking even higher. The rise in obesity has caused a subsequent surge in everything from high blood pressure, heart disease, and sleep apnea to arthritis, non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, gallstones, infertility, incontinence, and certain kinds of cancer. On top of that, approximately twenty million Americans now have type 2 diabetes. The problem has officials in sectors ranging from public health to education to government casting about wildly for answers, coming up with some that appear to be taken directly from Lord of the Flies. For example, legislators in Mississippi, which has the highest rate of obesity in the U.S. at 29.5 percent of residents, actually drafted a bill earlier this year that will—if it is passed—make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese people.

    The problem, Billington says, is that he and his colleagues spent decades trying to develop pharmaceutical and surgical solutions to type 2 diabetes and obesity. Now, however, the problem is too pervasive for that.

    “We thought twenty years ago, and I still think now, that the key mechanisms are in the brain,” he says. “But that idea normally is interpreted as the need to find a drug that would allow us to control appetite or metabolism. I no longer think this will be the answer, because at this point about seventy percent of the American population is overweight or obese and that means a drug as the primary strategy would be fantastically expensive.”

    Instead, Billington advises his patients to cook at home as often as possible. He helps them find ways to obtain fresh, wholesome ingredients, tells them to avoid fast food, and teaches them about NEAT: non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

    The theory behind NEAT, which was developed at the Mayo Clinic, is that people with so-called “fast metabolisms” burn up to a thousand calories a day through spontaneous movement, such as fidgeting, pacing, and gesturing. But these things are governed both by genes and by girth. The fact is that heavier people move less than skinny ones, probably because their bodies have settled into stasis due to weight—it requires greater effort to move their bodies around. Studies show they sit an average of a hundred and fifty more minutes each day than people of normal weight. So Billington is training his patients, one by one, to twitch.

    He admits, however, that the problem goes well beyond basic health care. Obesity is the natural outcome of a world in which foods that are cheap and plentiful are also calorie-rich and processed.

    “Evolution dictates that we seek out energy-dense foods,” says Billington. “And it’s not just humans. Rats like them, dogs like them. All God’s creatures do. It’s a matter of survival—there are biological cues telling us to get calories when we can. But now we have access to energy-dense foods all day, every day, in the gas station and the break room at work. Their value biologically hasn’t diminished; in fact, it’s been enhanced by repeated exposure. People are just doing what their bodies tell them to.”

    When caring for patients who do have means and options, Billington makes two additional recommendations. He likes Volumetrics, the diet plan conceived by Barbara Rolls (a Ph.D. nutritionist from Penn State) that advises people to eat satisfying portions of low-density foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. The caveat, of course, is that these foods tend to be more expensive and quicker to spoil than Hormel cold cuts and Hostess pies.

    “Rolls is the only diet book author I know who bases her writing on actual evidence,” he says. “Her theory is that you can train yourself to choose whole foods, and on average they will be low-density. The truth is, people who are doing well with their weight tend to eat quite a large volume of food, but it’s all of very high quality.”

    An at-home chef who used to belong to a local gourmet dining club, Billington also advises his patients who can afford to dine out to choose places such as Meritage and Heartland, rather than steak houses or high-end restaurants where the entrées are swimming in butter or cream.

    “Heartland is a perfect example of the way people should be eating,” he says. “The food is really good, of extremely high quality, and the vegetables are often the star of the plate. There is protein—which is an obligatory dietary requirement—but the portions aren’t huge. People tend to feel satisfied with this sort of meal.”

    But that doesn’t solve the problem for people who cannot afford to shop at the Wedge or pay fifty dollars per person for dinner. Even educating people and telling them to avoid French fries and convenience store burritos won’t help those most at risk.

    “If you learn to cook and you live in south Minneapolis, you can eat pretty well for not a lot of money,” says Billington. “But if you’re living in north Minneapolis and your only option is the local market because you don’t have a car, you’re not going to be able to eat well. We tend to frame this as an in
    dividual choice, but for a very large number of people it’s not. Rampant obesity is, in this sense, simply an outcome of poverty.”

  • Other Fish in the Sea

    We seem to be in the midst of sushi mania. Two new restaurants—Seven and Musashi—opened recently, barely a block apart on Hennepin Avenue, which means that downtown Minneapolis now boasts at least a dozen sushi outlets. (The others; Koyi, Nami, Origami, Martini Blu, Wasabi, Ichiban, a sushi counter at Macy’s Marketplace, Zen Box, and two Tensuke Sushi locations.)

    Raw fish is making new inroads into the neighborhoods as well, with Bagu at 48th and Chicago, and Obento-ya at 15th and Como. In St. Paul, the Korean restaurant KumGangSan recently added Sushi World to its name and installed a sushi bar and lunch buffet, following the lead of King’s Korean in Fridley. As the central cities get saturated with raw fish, new outposts of sushi open up in far-flung Woodbury, Maple Grove, Apple Valley, and Edina.

    The tidbits of vinegared rice and seafood are everywhere these days—in supermarket delis, Chinese all-you-can-eat buffets, and even on giant party trays at Costco. But as sushi has made the passage from sophisticated and exotic delicacy to mass-market merchandise, something has gotten lost in translation. Most of the local sushi restaurants have little connection to Japan: The owners of Kikugawa, Musashi, Wasabi, and Mount Fuji (the last in Maple Grove) are Chinese; the owners of Koyi Sushi, Bagu, and Zushiya (the last also in Maple Grove) are Thai; and the sushi chefs themselves are from all over (but rarely from Japan). The food may look and taste the same—indeed, most local sushi restaurants serve the same varieties of fish and seafood, purchased from the same suppliers—but the little rituals that are part of the traditional sushi experience are missing.

    So how do you go beyond the ordinary and find something more interesting, and less generic, than the stuff that’s offered on every sushi menu in town? You ask for it. In Japanese, the word is omakase, which translates roughly as “I am putting myself in your hands” or as we might say here, “chef’s choice.”

    My top choice among the new sushi restaurants is Giapponese Sushi in Woodbury. When I asked for omakase, chef-owner Henry Chan immediately understood my request, and proceeded to serve up a delightful series of courses: raw scallop, Tasmanian salmon, halibut rolled in a thin ribbon of cucumber, a whole small mackerel presented as sashimi, and a roll of tempura shrimp and avocado topped with tuna.

    Chan, who grew up in Wisconsin, recently moved here from Eau Claire, where he owns the town’s only sushi bar, the Shanghai Bistro. He clearly has a passion for sushi, and listening to him, he sounds truly committed to bringing in the best quality and most interesting varieties he can find. The selection is still pretty limited, but he says that as his sales volume grows, he will be adding more varieties. He sends an email to customers when he has something unusual to offer, like houbou (blue fin sea robin) from the Tsujiki fish market in Tokyo; to be added to his mailing list, send him an email at twinscroll@gmail.com.

    I’d also return to Giapponese Sushi to try the Kobe beef steaks—a sixteen-ounce, bone-in New York strip and a fourteen-ounce rib eye are each $55. This isn’t the original Kobe beef from Japan, where the cattle are massaged daily and fed rations of beer, but it’s the same breed, Wagyu, reportedly with a lot more marbling than even USDA Prime. Chan gets his beef from a friend who has a herd of Wagyu near Augusta, Wisconsin. While $55 for a steak sounds pretty steep, compared to what other restaurants charge, it’s a bargain. Locally, Cosmos has imported Japanese Kobe beef on its menu for $17 an ounce (which works out to $272 for a sixteen-ounce steak), and even that’s a steal compared to Craftsteak in Las Vegas. There, you’ll pay $105 for a fourteen-ounce American Wagyu rib eye, $184 for an eight-ounce Australian Wagyu rib eye, and $240 for an 8-ounce Japanese Wagyu steak (yes, that’s $480 a pound).

    Next stop, Musashi in downtown Minneapolis. I asked for omakase, and the sushi chef gave me a puzzled look. “Teppanyaki?” he asked—or something that sounded like that. (They have teppanyaki tables in back.)

    “No,” I said. “Omakase.”

    “We don’t have that.”

    Just then, a second sushi chef, Noua, overheard our conversation and stepped in: “I can do that. How many courses do you want? How much do you want to spend? Four courses? Five?”

    We never did agree on a price, but a series of off-the-menu dishes began to arrive, starting with a pair of martini glasses filled with chunks of raw tuna and salmon with thin slices of cucumber in a soy marinade. At the bottom of each glass was a fake ice cube with a little blinking light that changed colors from blue to green. (Actually, mine was stuck on blue.)

    Round two was four pieces of raw salmon wrapped around spears of fresh mango, partially cooked with a blowtorch, served over leaves of aromatic Japanese chrysanthemum. The decorative centerpiece was another light-cube, flashing red, blue, and green, buried under a pile of shredded daikon. Then came a seafood medley covered in a spicy mayonnaise the color of Thousand Island dressing, dappled with orange flying fish roe. The flashing ice cube made its final appearance in round four, alongside four little rice balls wrapped in eel and white tuna. This was, the sushi chef informed us, “French-style sushi.”

    I have never seen anything like it in France, but the phrase rang a bell. French-style sushi is also how the Chinese chefs at Mt. Fuji in Maple Grove described their neon DayGlo fantasies on the theme of sushi, festooned with red, green, orange, and black flying fish roe.

    “Are you all from China?” I asked the Musashi chefs. “We’re from Asia,” sushi chef No. 3 offered, helpfully. “Not me,” shouted Noua, in perfect English. “I’m from St. Paul.”

    Overall, some of the off-the-menu omakase dishes were pretty good, some of it was just okay, and mostly it was kind of weird. I did see a lot of “normal” sushi come out of the sushi bar while we were dining, and it looked the same as it does everywhere else.

    The most stylish of the new entries in the sushi sweepstakes is Seven, on the second floor of the new r.Norman’s steak house at Seventh and Hennepin. The sushi counter is translucent marble, and white-curtained columns throughout the sushi bar and lounge bathe the otherwise dim space in diffuse colored light that cycles through shades of blue, red, and green—sort of like the fake ice cubes at Musashi, but on a grander scale.

    Seven’s menu offers an impressive selection of sakes and a fairly standard assortment of sushi. I wanted to order omakase, but quickly discovered that omakase is already offered on the menu. We chose the sushi-for-two ($40): the chef’s choice of two specialty rolls and ten pieces of “sushi grade” nigiri sushi.

    Omakase is a chance for a sushi chef to show some imagination and creativity, but this time around what we got was generic versions of the most popular sushi available: a tempura roll, a spicy tuna roll, and two pieces each of shrimp, tuna, salmon, yellowtail, and flounder. Our waitress mostly ignored us, as did our sushi chef.

    Last stop: Obento-ya Japanese Bistro, a little storefront with a low-budget décor that suggests the minimalist aesthetic of Japanese interior design. The owners are a young American-born husband and his Japanese-born wife, and the place just feels more Japanese than most of the glitzier places around town. I splurged and ordered the most expensive item on the menu, the deluxe sushi bento ($12.95), which included six pieces of nigiri sushi and a California roll, plus green salad, Japanese potato salad, sautéed burdock, little wedges of Japanese omelet, and miso soup.

    The sushi turned out to be pretty standard, but the rest of the menu is more impressive. First of all, it’s really cheap—most of the basic ben
    to boxes are under $8, and udon and soba noodle soups are $4.95-$6.50. Second, there are a variety of traditional Japanese dishes that you can’t find at most of the other places—not just the variety of bento boxes and the noodle soups, but also a big selection of robata—skewers of meat, fish, or seafood, grilled or deep-fried ($1.50-$4.50 à la carte). The only thing that was missing was wine, beer, or sake, but I am told that should be fixed by the time this story is published.

    Giapponese Sushi, 10060 Citywalk Drive, Woodbury; 651-578-7777;
    www.giapponesesushi.com

    Musashi, 533 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis; 612-332-8772
    Seven Sushi Ultralounge, 700 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis; 612-238-7777; www.7mpls.com

    Obento-ya Japanese Bistro, 1510 Como Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-331-1432;
    www.obento-ya.com