The sushi business employs well over 20 thousand people in the world, which doesn’t even count the fishermen who rely on the business to buy their catch. This Japanese staple is quickly growing in popularity, especially in the United States, where we ate 40% more sushi between 2000 and 2005. A good quarter of sushi restaurant that exist outside of Japan are in the U.S.
So what’s up with this fish? Well, in the most basic terms, the unique restaurants that specialize in this culinary art tend to be trendy, with fresh seafood and fast service with a flair. Apprentice sushi chefs have to train between five and ten years behind the sushi bar, with every day spent learning the exact process of how to prepare their seafood, the proper composition, density, and shape of what they serve, as well as daily maintenance of their knives and other tools.
Sushi comes in servings of rolls, which are usually cut into six or eight pieces when served. One of the more popular rolls in the U.S. is the California Roll, which consists of avocado, cucumber, and crab/imitation crab meat. The history of the California Roll is rife with contradictions. The California Roll was actually first made in Canada by, as it turns out, a Japanese sushi chef trying to appeal to Western tastes. So it all comes ’round full circle.
A California Roll tends to have 255 calories, while Nigiri, which is fish served over a ball of rice rather than wrapped in rice, is 350 calories with ten grams of protein. That’s a bit of a punch for a rather small seafood burrito, but because the ingredients are almost always fresh with wholesome veggies and meat, these unique restaurants get to boast a relative healthy menu compared to other restaurant cuisine which involves a lot of oil and salt. The only seasoning sushi needs is a dot of wasabi and a splash of soy sauce.
If you’ve ever tried to make sushi at home, you’ll know it’s hard to get everything to stay where it should and still come out looking neat. Taking your friends to a unique restaurant like this will give them food and entertainment. Many sushi bars prepare their fare right in front of you, so you get to see the precision that goes into making these delicious rolls.
