60 Fun Facts About Hard Sushi

Sukiyabashi Jiro was dropped from the Michelin Guide in November 2019. What was the stated reason?

Michelin only lists restaurants the public can book, and Jiro takes bookings solely through luxury-hotel concierges. It had been the first sushi restaurant ever to hold three stars.

Which US president ate at Sukiyabashi Jiro with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April 2014?

Reports differ on whether he finished the meal, but Abe said the president called it the best sushi he had ever eaten.

Who directed the 2011 documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi?

Gelb had originally planned a multi-chef film nicknamed 'Planet Sushi'; he later created the Netflix series Chef's Table.

Whose minimalist compositions dominate the soundtrack of Jiro Dreams of Sushi?

The director said the repetitive, escalating music was a metaphor for a chef doing the same routine daily while reaching for one more step of improvement.

A 2013 fire at Sukiyabashi Jiro was traced to what?

A chef had returned the straw to the storeroom, where it most likely ignited. It took about an hour to put out and nobody was hurt.

Which critic gave Sushi Nakazawa a perfect four-star New York Times review in 2013?

The owners hired Daisuke Nakazawa after watching Jiro Dreams of Sushi; the counter has just ten seats.

Kiyoshi Kimura, the 'Tuna King' of Japan's New Year auction, founded which chain?

Kimura heads Kiyomura Corporation and has repeatedly been the New Year auction's top bidder, including a record 510 million yen fish in 2026.

A 278 kg bluefin fetched a record 333.6 million yen at Toyosu in 2019. It was caught near which northern Japanese town?

Ōma, at the northern tip of Aomori Prefecture, is famous for line-caught bluefin. The winning bid worked out to roughly $5,000 a pound.

Toyosu, the fish market that replaced Tsukiji, sits in which Tokyo ward?

It was built on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay and, at 408,000 square metres, is almost twice the size of old Tsukiji.

What had previously occupied the Toyosu site, whose toxic soil delayed Tokyo's fish market move by two years?

Tokyo spent an extra 3.8 billion yen digging hundreds of wells to pump out contaminated groundwater before the market finally opened in October 2018.

Tsukiji fish market opened in 1935 to replace an older market that had been destroyed by what?

The old market at Nihonbashi was already slated for relocation over its unsanitary conditions; the earthquake forced the issue and the rebuild took over six years.

Before Tsukiji, Tokyo's fish market stood for centuries in which bridge-named district?

Tokugawa Ieyasu brought fishermen from Tsukuda in Osaka to Edo in 1590 to supply the castle; whatever the castle did not buy was sold at the 'uogashi' by the bridge.

Which British phycologist, honoured in Japan as the 'Mother of the Sea', rescued the post-war nori industry?

Her work on Welsh laver revealed the seaweed's three-stage life cycle, which Japanese scientists used to seed and grow nori artificially. She has a statue in Japan.

Sheet nori (ita-nori) was invented in Asakusa around 1750 by borrowing the method of which other craft?

Before that, nori was eaten as a paste. The sheet form is what made makizushi possible a few decades later.

The most prized 'shin-nori', from the first harvest of the year, is cultivated in which Japanese sea?

Ariake lies off Kyushu. Top-grade sheets can cost around 90 cents each in the US, versus about six cents for common Chinese-grown nori.

Most nori is made from red algae of which genus?

P. yezoensis and P. tenera are the main species. Farmed plants grow on nets at the sea surface and can be harvested about 45 days after seeding.

The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to researchers who used wasabi vapour to build what?

Sniffing wasabi acts like smelling salts; one deaf test subject woke within ten seconds of the vapour being sprayed into his sleeping chamber.

The Daio Wasabi Farm in Azumino, the world's largest commercial wasabi farm, is in which prefecture?

Runoff from upstream rice paddies means the farm needs no added fertiliser. Shizuoka's Izu Peninsula is the other great wasabi region.

Where do sushi chefs traditionally place the wasabi in a piece of nigiri, so its flavour is preserved?

Fresh wasabi paste loses its punch quickly when exposed to air, which is also why top restaurants grate it to order.

Kabuki actor Bandō Mitsugorō VIII died in 1975 after eating four servings of which part of a fugu?

He claimed he could resist the poison. Serving fugu liver in restaurants was banned nationwide in 1984.

Japan's largest wholesale fugu market is in which city?

Locals there still use the old pronunciation 'fuku', a homonym for good fortune, and hold a ceremony releasing hundreds of fugu into the sea each season.

In Kansai slang, fugu is nicknamed 'teppō'. What does the word mean?

It is a pun on the verb 'ataru', which can mean either to be shot or to be poisoned.

In which year did Japan's fugu deaths peak at 176, the same year chef licensing was introduced?

Since then, would-be fugu chefs need a two- or three-year apprenticeship and a written, identification and practical exam; only about a third pass.

Uni, the part of the sea urchin eaten as sushi, is actually which organ?

Menus euphemise it as 'roe', but both male and female urchins are eaten. Regular urchins carry five of them, and top grade can retail for ¥40,000 a kilogram.

Hamachi, often sold as 'yellowtail tuna', actually belongs to which family?

Around 120,000 tonnes a year are farmed from wild fry scooped up under floating seaweed each May.

Farmed Japanese amberjack is called hamachi at about 3 kg and what once it reaches 5 kg?

The winter fattiness of the adult fish makes it a seasonal delicacy of Toyama and the Hokuriku coast.

Ōgiya, a tamagoyaki shop trading in Ōji since 1648, appears in an ukiyo-e print series by which artist?

The shop also turns up in the rakugo tale 'Ōji no kitsune'. Chicken eggs only became a common Japanese food in the early Edo period, once the ban on eating them was lifted.

Traditionally made gari turns naturally pink only under what condition?

Mature ginger stays yellowish, so many commercial brands add beet juice, red shiso or the dye E124 to get the colour diners expect.

The Japanese word 'ikura' for salmon roe is borrowed from which language?

In the original tongue 'ikra' means any fish roe or caviar; Japanese narrowed it to salmon eggs, usually cured in soy sauce and sake.

Masago, the cheaper roe often swapped in for tobiko, comes from which fish?

Tobiko is flying-fish roe and sits between masago and salmon ikura in size, at 0.5 to 0.8 mm per egg.

Black tobiko gets its colour from what natural ingredient?

Yuzu turns it pale yellow and wasabi turns it green and spicy, so a single serving can show several colours.

Anago, the sweeter and less oily eel that is usually simmered for sushi, is what kind of eel?

Unagi is the freshwater eel, usually grilled with kabayaki sauce; anago normally means the conger Conger myriaster.

A traditional hangiri, the tub for cooling sushi rice, is made from which wood?

Sizes run from about 30 cm across for home use to a metre wide in restaurants; the rice is turned with a shamoji paddle and covered with a cloth to cool.

The long, thin yanagiba knife used to slice fish for nigiri and sashimi is named after which tree?

The name refers to the blade's long, pliant shape. It is ground on one side only and used in a single pulling stroke rather than pushed.

A makisu rolling mat is traditionally woven from bamboo and what?

The same mat is used to shape tamagoyaki and to squeeze liquid from cooked greens; in Korea it is the kimbal used for gimbap.

The 'sushi burrito' was created in 2008 by Peter Yen at a fast-casual restaurant in which city?

His restaurant was called Sushirrito, and the format spread through US 'foodie' culture despite critics dismissing it as an oversized maki roll.

'Sushi pizza', a fried rice patty topped with fish, is a signature dish of which city?

It was devised no later than 1993 by chef Kaoru Ohsada at Nami Japanese Seafood Restaurant and became a Toronto classic alongside the peameal bacon sandwich.

The spicy tuna roll was invented in the 1980s by Jean Nakayama of the Maneki restaurant in which city?

She mixed tuna scraps with chilli sauce, a close cousin of Japanese negitoro, which uses scallions instead of heat.

In the Pacific Northwest, the Philadelphia roll is usually named after which city instead?

Like most Western rolls it is made inside-out, with the rice outside, to hide the nori that early American diners tended to peel off.

The rainbow roll, a California roll draped with assorted fish, is also known as which 'roll'?

It is also called a dragon roll or fish roll. Where the California roll uses no raw fish at all, the rainbow adds tuna, salmon, shrimp and white fish on top.

By one account, Tokyo Kaikan chef Ichiro Mashita invented the California roll by swapping avocado for what?

The earliest versions reportedly used frozen king crab legs, because imitation crab was not yet available locally.

Kawafuku, called the first authentic US sushi bar, opened in the 1960s in which neighbourhood?

Food importer Noritoshi Kanai of Mutual Trading is credited with persuading the owner to add a sushi counter staffed by a chef trained in Japan.

Nobu Matsuhisa's signature fusion style blends Japanese technique with the ingredients of which country, where he ran a restaurant in the 1970s?

He moved to Lima at 24 in 1973 and improvised with local produce; his later Anchorage restaurant burned down two weeks after opening.

Which actor became Nobu Matsuhisa's partner and co-founded the first Nobu in Tribeca in 1994?

The pair met when the actor ate at Matsuhisa on La Cienega Boulevard; Nobu later had a cameo alongside him in Casino.

Nearly all of Japan's kaiten-zushi conveyor belts are made in which prefecture?

The belts use a plastic crescent-plate chain that runs on its side, giving the tiny bending radius needed for a restaurant's tight corners.

Which sushi chain's 2021 Taiwan promotion led dozens to legally add 'salmon' to their names?

The two-day offer of free sushi for anyone with 'salmon' in their name was dubbed 'salmon chaos' by the media. The same chain lost 16 billion yen in market value after a 2023 soy-sauce-licking video.

In which Tokyo district did chef Yuki Chizui open Japan's first all-female sushi restaurant in 2010?

The itamae's trade has traditionally been reserved for men; the apprentice rank below is called wakiita, 'near the cutting board'.

A Kyushu-style scattered sushi flavours its base with what instead of vinegar?

It is topped with shrimp, sea bream, octopus, shiitake, bamboo shoots and shredded omelette. Kantō dressings lean saltier, Kansai sweeter.

Compared with a modern piece, roughly how large was the rice in Hanaya Yohei's Edo-era nigiri?

Edo nigiri also used half as much vinegar, more salt instead of sugar, and red vinegar made from sake lees.

The green plastic 'baran' dividers in supermarket sushi trays replaced cut leaves of which plant?

Real leaves release antimicrobial phytoncides when cut, which helped preserve the sushi; plastic took over in the 1960s as refrigeration spread.

The OED's earliest written mention of sushi in English comes from a book of which decade?

The 1893 book A Japanese Interior called it 'a roll of cold rice with fish, sea-weed, or some other flavoring'; Hepburn's dictionary had listed it even earlier, in 1873.

Since which year has the Kitashina shop made funazushi, Lake Biwa's fermented sushi?

Fish are salted for a year and then repacked annually in fermented rice for up to four more; the roe is said to smell like cheese.

Australian-style takeaway sushi rolls first appeared in 1995 at a stall in which city?

Owner Toshihiro Shindo adapted the fillings to local tastes; sushi has since been ranked Australia's third most popular food item after hot dogs and pizza.

"Doshi", a donut-shaped rice ball on a fried crab cake topped with sushi ingredients, comes from which country?

The same scene produced maki poutine, topped with cheese curds and gravy. Sinaloan sushi, meanwhile, comes from Mexico.

The Yōrō Code, which mentions sushi as a tribute item, dates from which year?

Scholars think it probably referred to narezushi, the fermented fish that preceded modern sushi by a millennium.

The word omakase literally means what?

It comes from the verb makaseru, 'to entrust'. A typical omakase runs 10 to 20 courses, starting light and building.

Yoshiaki Shiraishi opened the first conveyor-belt sushi restaurant in 1958 in which city?

The restaurant was called Genroku Zushi, and kaiten-zushi went on to become Japan's most casual and affordable sushi format.

Norway's Bjørn E. Olsen finally sold Japan on salmon sushi in the late 1980s with which food supplier?

Norway's farmed salmon glut had first reached Japan in 1980, but was accepted only for grilling, not raw.

Fermented rice-and-fish narezushi is thought to have originated in Southeast Asia, possibly in which river basin?

It was a way of preserving freshwater fish; the Irrawaddy basin in today's Myanmar is another candidate.

Namanare, a 'partially fermented' sushi that shortened the old fermenting time, was invented in which period?

The Muromachi period ran from 1336 to 1573; the development of rice vinegar was key to the change.