In my recent review of Shizen, the vegan sushi bar in the Mission, I mentioned that one of the unintentional consequences of eating there was the elimination of one of the biggest unintentional consequences of eating sushi. That is to say, without any fish to eat, I didn’t have to worry as much about the depletion of marine life, bycatch risks or slavery. The sense of relief was like I’d taken a small dose of Xanax before my meal, and I could tuck into my nigiri and maki sushi with the calm of someone who has the inclination to meditate.
I do still love fish though, so I have to deal with the problem sometimes. We know that there are real problems with the fishing industry and that signaling that problematic fish aren’t desirable is helpful to conservation, but I don’t think we’re so adept at actually talking this all out on a consumer level. The wonder of sushi bars, especially the ones that provide omakase menus, is that we’re putting all of our trust in the chefs. While that’s true on a taste and quality level, it can be harder to verify how an individual restaurant is doing regarding sustainability.
When at sushi bars, it’s so much easier to stay silent or focus your remarks on how good something tastes. After all, you’re all here to have fun, right? Why do you want to introduce such an unsexy topic of conversation as sustainability while the sake’s flowing and everyone’s laughing? I would argue, however, that wearing blinkers while you partake in fish of unknown provenance is a practice that will be harder and harder to live out if we continue to signal that we don’t care. When we run out of tuna, the choice won’t be ours to make anymore.
Still, at every sushi counter I’ve sat at, I was invited to interface with the chef — to ask questions or make requests as I saw fit. It’s not entirely uncouth to ask your chef about this stuff, but I think there are smoother and friendlier ways to go about it than just asking, “Where’d you get this?” Here’s how I approach situations like this at sushi bars.
Take a look at the menu or website before you go.
Does it have any text about sustainability or where the fish comes from? Some menus might go into detail about the fishery or even include descriptions of how the fish was caught. The menu at Tataki, Shizen’s omnivorous sibling restaurant, includes that information, for example. If there’s no information about that at all, call or email ahead to ask if there are environmentally friendly options available. If there are only a few sustainable options for fish, supplement your order with vegetarian options like cucumber or kanpyo. If the restaurant responds in a dismissive way, that’ll tell you something.
Consider domestic fish.
While it definitely sounds cool to eat fresh fish that’s been flown into the States from Tokyo that morning, this is a practice that has a heavy carbon footprint. The practice is part of crafting an authentic sushi experience that’s just like one you’d have in Japan — but there, the fish is much more local. Domestic seafood like pompano, oysters and albacore tuna do much less traveling to get to your plate.
If the staff tell you a fish is “sustainable,” ask for an explanation.
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Sometimes when I ask, the chef or manager will tell me that the restaurant “cares about sustainability” and then just stop there. Odds are, the staff just don’t want to bore you with the details. A good way to get them to actually tell you about the restaurant’s practices is to ask questions that impart true interest — because you are interested! Get them to boast about all the cool things they do to make sure the products they’re putting in front of you are the best they can possibly be.
Cross-reference with apps.
I love the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch app, which is a handy compendium that includes most species that you’ll find at a sushi bar, updated with the latest information on fishing and farming techniques and international regulations. It’ll tell you, for instance, that bluefin tuna farming, while it sounds better, isn’t actually very environmentally friendly at all. It even includes the Japanese names for the fish in case you’re not sure what they’re called in English. The most important part of the app for me is that it helps me ask smarter questions, like “Is the butterfish caught with bottom trawls or longlines?”
Another really excellent use of the app is its directory of restaurants and grocers that are Seafood Watch-approved. In San Francisco, that includes places like Woodhouse Fish Co., Tacolicious, Fog Harbor Fish House and Farallon.
My most important advice? Be nice.
This is a really important conversation to have, but grilling a server about all of this when they clearly don’t know is not going to get you the answers you need. If the person you ask doesn’t have the details, kindly request to talk to someone who does. Make it clear that you trust the judgment of the chefs and just want to hear more about their process and choices, which they’ve surely put a lot of thought into. They’re experts, after all — and who better to learn from?
Best song I heard in a restaurant
I was waiting in line for quesabirria tacos at Temescal Brewing when a familiar guitar riff hopped out of the vendor’s speakers. El Garage, a pop-up which slings their version of the popular-in-L.A. taco out in Richmond most of the time, was blasting tunes that spanned from Selena to Phoenix, entertaining the line of peopl that wrapped along the side of the brewery’s patio. This song, “Como Te Extraño mi Amor” by Mexican group Café Tacvba, is one of my mom’s favorites: She plays it often in the dining room of her restaurant in Mexico, bobbing to the music as she shakes cocktails. Hearing it in Oakland made me think of her when I was least expecting to.
If you want to keep up with all of the songs I’ve mentioned in the newsletter, follow my Spotify playlist!
What I’m eating
Seeing the matsutake congee at Breadbelly, a casual bakery in the Richmond district, was a wonderful surprise: It feels like such a luxury, this bulbous mushroom from the Pacific Northwest, if only because of how well it captures the feeling of fall. The bowl itself is arranged to show off the beauty of all of its components: roasted squash seeds and chunks of squash, fancy bacon bits, sliced scallion, soft-cooked and gooey egg yolk and delicate slices of matsutake garnished with white sesame seeds. There are some things you just have to do when the seasons change; for me, that’s tucking into a hot bowl of rice porridge with all of the fixings.
Recommended reading
• Melissa Clark over at the New York Times considers the problem of shrimp: the labor and environmental issues that dog the global shrimp industry and how consumers can verify that what they’ve purchased complies with international standards.
• Tienlon Ho’s beautiful essay on family and the healing power of Chinese maternity practices is well worth a read. “(Dad) soaked the birds’ nests overnight until they melted into white clouds that smelled like the ocean, then tweezed out the bits of down woven in. Then he dropped the softened nests with some rock sugar and water into a dùn zhōng (炖盅), a stoneware double-boiler, and heated them gently until everything was a wispy, jelly broth. I ate it and somehow felt immediately less weary. It was the same with everything else he cooked.” You can find the essay in print (along with an essay I wrote about video games!) in Women on Food.
• Leena Trivedi-Grenier’s profile of Nora Haron is full of tantalizing details about the chef’s delicious, Southeast Asian-style pastries: “kaya buns (brioche buns stuffed with caramel-flavored coconut jam), and a moringa cloud cake, the fluffiest dairy-free chiffon made with coconut milk and slightly bitter moringa leaf powder.” I want to eat everything, so I can’t wait to check out Haron’s upcoming project, F— You Up Bakery.
Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle’s restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil
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October 21, 2019 at 06:00PM
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Eat this fish, not that fish: How to have the tuna conversation with your sushi chef - San Francisco Chronicle
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