![]() ![]() Shy by nature, Toshi retreats to the background using his strained English as an excuse to disengage. Meanwhile, the Kizaki brothers themselves have remained enigmas, very much by choice. Laserlike focus on the minutia of ingredients, sourcing, technique, and the experience of dining at Sushi Den have made the restaurant a Denver legend. Longevity is a feat for any business, but it’s an anomaly in an industry where only 60 percent of restaurants succeed beyond three years. “Toshi and I have a long way of doing things,” Yasu says, and it’s difficult to argue his point: In December, Sushi Den will celebrate its 28th birthday. ![]() He has enough purchasing power to ensure that the company funnels him its top selections. Toshi doesn’t need to make these pilgrimages to True World. He gathers a ribbon of light pink, translucent flesh and puts it in his mouth to taste. Yasu steps closer and runs the back of his thumbnail against the meat near the pearly spine. When he peels back a panel of muscle, the rib cage is revealed. Each cut is a minimalist dance that combines the precision of a surgeon with the grace of an artist. The fish outweighs him by a good 10 pounds, yet he doesn’t strain against the weight. He is a slight man, but it takes him just minutes to quarter the massive animal. He explains in a hushed voice that this is one of the reasons tuna are so difficult to farm: The boundary nets damage their skin.Ī few feet away, Toshi cuts through the bigeye’s thick flesh. Yasu speaks in measured phrases and sentences, as if translating thoughts from Japanese to English before he articulates. Even though Yasu is two years older than Toshi, his soft, youthful features make him look two years younger. ![]() It’s roughly the size of a nickel, opalescent and flexible, even flimsy. Yasu hands me a shimmery scale off the floor. Toshi chooses his fish, an unusually large 160-pound bigeye that’s a week out of the water. “The bloodline is one of the best indicators of a fish’s age-its freshness.” “You want it bright red because blood cells oxidize,” says Seattle Fish Company COO Derek Figueroa. Carved from the tail region, the half-moons reveal the color of the meat, the fat content, and the bloodline-the all-important indicator of freshness. Each notch corresponds to a different fish. Toshi, who is 56 and has smooth skin and close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, surveys a large corkboard where long, straight pins pierce knobs of skin-on flesh. This morning, True World is sitting on 1,000 pounds of bigeye. A typical bigeye weighs 95 pounds after being gutted and tailed (this weight is then whittled down by another 30 pounds when the bones, skin, and head are removed). We slip into freezer jackets and duck between plastic panels into the “tuna room,” an enormous refrigerator dedicated to the mammoth fish. Toshi and Yasu greet the staff in Japanese and quickly turn to business. Inside the warehouse, it takes my mind a minute to register the briny scent of the ocean while standing more than 1,000 miles from the Pacific. Order This: Crave’s Vanilla-Dusted Doughnuts. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |