Some years ago, in my notebook of potential songs, I had a title, "Cheap Sushi" but I could never make a song out of it because cheap sushi means different things to different people. Some love sushi but find it unaccountably expensive, and therefore appreciate a bargain. Others are disgusted by the thought of cheap sushi, picturing the health and cleanliness issues alluded to in earlier postings. Often, people make an equation: if it's cheap, it can't be safe.
My love for sushi began at a time when inexpensive sushi didn't exist in these United States. It always cost an arm and a leg, and, for that price, you were getting the highest quality fish, picked up that morning from a dock, stored in the best possible conditions and the cut by a master artisan who knew exactly where to cut the safest and most delicious morsels. (Gee, when you put it that way, it sounds like it's worth the price.) It was then I learned the rule that I've mentioned on this board before: if you don't see the chef's knife go through the fish, don't eat it.
Nowadays, every market, no matter what size, has little plastic platters of cheap sushi with the inevitable glob of wasabit and packet of soy sauce. You don't get to know the quality of the fish, who cut it, and when it might have been cut. I'd speculate that the poor guy with the worm problem might have habitually eaten that stuff.
The best meal I ever had in Los Angeles was a lunch at Matsuhisa on LaCienega's Restaurant Row. My friend's girlfriend at the time was something of a diplomat, and spoke with the chef - an essential part of a good sushi experience. Matsuhisa has been, for many years now, one of L.A.'s top restaurants. The L.A. Times critic who pronounced it the best restaurant in L.A. later moved to the New York Times, where she pronounced Nobu Matsuhisa's New York restaurant, Nobu, even better than Matsuhisa. Suffice it to say that no one has ever suffered any ill health effects from eating at these establishments. It would be MAJOR news in the restaurant world if they did.
But those crummy $5.50 trays in your supermarket, no one can vouch for.
And never eat sushi on a Sunday - fish markets take the day off and you're eating old fish. Joy won't eat it on Monday either.
