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24 Hours With A Michelin Star Sushi Chef: Sushi Kimura

RayDunzl

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How the other half lives...

 

Ilkless

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We can't go out to eat but maybe we can enjoy vicariously through videos like this:


Restaurant is in my home country. Definitely hope to try them. The chef seems like a great guy, more expressive than the Jiro types. Been trying to snag a table with a friend for Odette as well (first 3 Michelin-star restaurant in Singapore).
 

kokishin

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bigx5murf

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I think I've been here back in 2016, at the Ginza location
 

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kokishin

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I think I've been here back in 2016, at the Ginza location
If you're referring to Sushi Ishikawa, their only location is in Shinjuku.
 

RayDunzl

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I miss Tokyo.

Yeah, Japan can be a lot of fun, especially if on an expense account.

The common practice there, if you ask for a receipt, is (was) for them to ask "For how much?"

So we'd eat dinner (expensible) someplace cheap, ask for a big receipt for the food, to cushion the drinking expenses (generally non-expensible unless it could be worked into a "business meeting") for the rest of the night.

Sometimes, if we drank too much, we'd have to "eat" twice.

"But I was hungry!"

---

My first trip to Tokyo area, actually Kashiwa, to the northeast, to test ISDN machines, in 1986;

Four of us, for three, our first trip to Japan.

Get off the plane at Narita, notice I'm immediately totally illiterate.

Follow the crowd, get to immigration, show NEC ID and Passport, no questions, get baggage and get to customs, show NEC ID and Passport, no questions.

Get two taxis, notice the military presence around the airport, since there were still problems stemming from the then new airport having confiscated rice paddies from the locals, drivers stop a couple of times along the way to compare maps and argue, because neither was familiar with we were headed.

Finally get to hotel, check in, up to room. Phone rings "Let's go". To meet two managers that had been there a month or so already.

Following Phil, walk out of hotel, down main street, down an alley, another alley, another alley, into a restaurant, through the kitchen, into the back, down the stairs to some private rooms in the basement.

This was Sunday afternoon, they'd been there since Friday, low tables, pillows, scatterred drinks and bottles and food dishes and newpapers, equipment manuals and drawings, faxes.... and finally Gus and Pete sprawled out,

"Have a beer."

I felt like I'd penetrated Col. Kurtz secret lair (as in Apocalypse Now).

It was at that moment I decided that a three month stay in Japan might not be so bad...

Did two more trips like that, in 1992 and 1998.

This was what I'll always think of as my final going away party, since I forever flew away the next day.

The Summer Party in the soccer fields behind NEC's Abiko plant:

1584659294346.png


I don't know how we rated a table right down in the front, but, there we were.

The beer was supplied, Sumitomo Group owns both Asahi and NEC.

I brought three bottles of Jack Daniels (one in bottom left of top left picture).
 
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amirm

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Restaurant is in my home country. Definitely hope to try them. The chef seems like a great guy, more expressive than the Jiro types.
Indeed. The most expensive sushi I had was at a private club type of place. Was taken out by the top executive and owner of the company that did PC support for all major companies in Japan. The sushi chef there was wonderful (with seating for just 10 people or so for the entire place). He said that the top fishmongers at Tsukiji market would save him the best cuts because they liked him and thought the rest of the top sushi chefs were too arrogant! He gave us prices for some of the items and my estimate was that each of us had something like $1,300 in sushi alone! I was glad the other company was paying as there was no way I could expense that, even for a business "meeting."
 
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amirm

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How the other half lives...

That's actually quite a few steps up from what conveyor sushi can be. Most of the ones in US are not edible. Even one of the ones in Tokyo we went to with our kids (trying to economize) was horrible.
 

RayDunzl

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The most expensive sushi I had was at a private club type of place.


https://japansauce.net/2019/01/05/2019-most-expensive-tuna-sells-for-over-3-1-million-dollars/

---

What I will presume was the most expensive dinner I had, since menu to look at, no bill was presented.

Somewhere on the outskirts of Kashiwa, we were driven there by "a rich guy" that worked at NEC "to give him something to do".

A little dirt parking area, big enough for four or five cars, on the side of a country road. No signage that I could see. No other cars parked.

Get out, walk up a winding path through a bamboo forest in the fading evening light , leading to a doorway surrounded by vines and bamboo - it may have been the entrance to a cave, as there was no apparent building.

Enter the lobby, nobody there. Things to look at. After a couple of minutes, down the hall on one side a door slides open. We go to that room and sit down. Somebody unseen slides the door closed.

There's already drinks and snacks and hot towels on the table.

After a while a door in the back of the room slides open, Towels taken more drinks delivered and soon the first of several deliveries of food arrive. No words spoken by the staff (nice kimono ladies) that I remember.

When done after a couple of hours, we just leave.

Back to the real world.
 
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BillH

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We have no “dining out”
Pickup only
So we are trying to support the local restaurant owners
 

Trouble Maker

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Those are awesome stories and pictures!

It reminds me of my first few business trips here, to Hokkaido in the winter, staying in Asahikawa. Walking down a large road, turning onto a smaller road, to an alley, to a walkway, to a narrow walkway, at that point thinking I shouldn't be there because this is where you don't go in large cities in the west, then finally getting to the restaurant usually with 10~15 seats and it was absolute amazing. Some of the guys I went up there with had been spending months of each year up there for 20+ years, they know all of the best places to eat, and the food up there is incredible.

I can't even imagine living here before cell phones/google... it makes it all so, relatively easy and accessible, to the point where I'm sure it is on one had making everything much more livable but also hindering my language progression. My old boss who lived here ~15 years ago used to know which train stop to get off at by looking for J, B, Snowman in 宇都宮.
 

SIY

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Japan was the one country that the more I went there, the less I understood it. It was probably the toughest place for me as a vegetarian to find a decent meal- our business partners there took us to some amazingly elaborate restaurants in Tokyo, and I felt a bit bad for not really eating anything. There was, though, a tempura restaurant in Kumamoto that was stunningly good, one of the most memorable meals I've ever had.
 

Xulonn

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kokishin

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Sushi Zanmai in Tsukiji is a pretty good sushi boat (kaiten) restaurant. Decent sushi at a decent price.

Mrs K and I would meet the future in-laws there for a family sushi dinner on occasion.

http://www.kiyomura.co.jp/sp/shops/detail/3

〒104-0045
東京都中央区築地4-10-2

Sushi Zanmai is a chain restaurant and not all of them are sushi boat restaurants.
 

Trouble Maker

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RayDunzl

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My old boss who lived here ~15 years ago used to know which train stop to get off at by looking for J, B, Snowman in 宇都宮.

The only Japanese writing I learned was my city name:



I called it (to myself) Christmas Tree and a Birdcage.

It came in handy in picking the next train at the distant train stations less frequented by foreigners.
 

Celty

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Sorry but I don't eat bait
 
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