The Finest Sushi Is SGD40 In Ginza

This week, we feature a restaurant which serves sushi worth 30,000 yen for less than 5,000 yen and a Michelin-starred chef who creates an affordable yet delicious seaweed bento. 

We first check out the famous New Year tuna auction at Tokyo’s well-known Toyosu Market. A high-end sushi restaurant has been the highest bidder at the market for the last two years. Sushi Ginza Onodera has also opened a new shop where they serve 30,000-yen sushi for only 4,000 yen. It gets its tuna from wholesaler Yamayuki, which is known for handling only the finest quality of wild tuna. The company’s representative, Yukitaka Yamaguchi, is known as Japan's number one tuna connoisseur. His clients include famous restaurants nationwide. He specifically chooses tuna that will match the rice and dishes served at each restaurant. 

We follow Yamayuki's truck which is delivering tuna to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward, Omotesando. It is managed by the high-end sushi restaurant in Ginza, Onodera and gets its tuna from Yamayuki. Its sushi includes tuna nigiri, bluefin tuna chutoro and bluefin tuna otoro. Akifumi Sakagami, the head chef at the main Ginza restaurant, Sushi Ginza Onodera, is also in charge of the conveyor belt sushi restaurant. He allows us to tag along as he goes to Toyosu Market to buy ingredients for the sushi restaurant. He purchases some large wild red sea bream. He then visits the next shop right before it closes to buy wild longtooth grouper at half the price. 

Both the high-end and conveyor belt sushi restaurants are operated by the Onodera Group, which entered the restaurant industry in 2013. The president of the Onodera Food Service is Shinji Nagao. Onodera has also opened a new restaurant in Setagaya Ward, Futakotamagawa. Sushi Ginza Onodera Otouto Honten serves the dishes at half the price, while using the same ingredients as the main Ginza restaurant. It is a stand-up sushi bar and all the ingredients are prepared in a central kitchen in the basement. The ingredients are purchased in bulk and prepared together with the ones for the main restaurant in Ginza. At Ginza Onodera Otouto Honten, aspiring sushi chefs - called Teko - assist the main chefs to prepare the ingredients. 

The sushi industry has a shortage of sushi chefs, with many young ones giving up as they are not able to keep up with the years of training. Therefore, Chef Sakagami from Sushi Ginza Onodera came up with the idea of Touryumon, which serves as a training ground for aspiring sushi chefs. It sells about 60 kinds of sushi. Once their skills are recognised at this restaurant, these young chefs can serve at the main restaurant. They are sometimes evaluated by Mr Nagao and employees from Onodera Group’s subsidiary companies. 

Our next destination is Ministop, a convenience store, which has started selling a new type of bento. It was the brainchild of Michelin-starred chef Shusaku Toba. He suggested making bentos with a special sauce, leading to the creation of “Sauce Bento”. Chef Toba’s own restaurant, called “sio”, is located in Tokyo, Shibuya Ward, Yoyogi-Uehara. Trained in both Italian and French cuisine, he is known for creating “innovative cuisine” and unconventional dishes that are not tied to any genre. He entered the industry when he was 31 and earned a Michelin star in 10 years. He is so popular that he is among the top three most subscribed Michelin-starred chefs in Japan on YouTube. 

At his restaurant sio, traditional Japanese breakfast set meals are served from 9am to 11am. Among all the dishes, the most popular item is the large salted and grilled silver salmon. The skin is crispy, while the meat is soft and juicy. Mr Toba wanted as many people as possible to enjoy this so he decided to make it into a bento. He thus wants to create his own original seaweed bento. He ropes in Tsubasa Kida and Toshiya Nakamura, who runs the kitchen at sio, to help in making the bento. He tells them to include the basic flavours of sourness, sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness in the bento. So besides the grilled silver salmon, teriyaki chicken, rolled omelette, deep-fried chikuwa with seaweed, stir-fried lotus root, yuzu daikon radish and spicy cod roe are also added in the bento to create the ultimate seaweed bento.  

Tips:

1)    Tokyo’s Toyosu Market is famous for its New Year tuna auction
2)    Some high-end sushi restaurants have branches with reasonably priced food