Bloody hell, that was good.
Quick backstory: A couple of weeks ago, I got a call from the PR people at Sugarfish, the restaurant owned by Kazunori Ozawa of Sushi Nozawa (who also, as it happens, is profiled today in a WSJ piece, "Sushi Bullies"). They were starting takeout service; would I like to receive a free lunch? Why, yes, I would. Over the years, I have (happily) spent thousands of dollars at his restaurant, where a request for takeout could get you kicked out. So, yeah, free Nozawa at my desk? Bring it on.
And then something odd happened: I completely forgot about it. In the last two weeks I have traveled to Texas, attended a conference and launched another blog. I haven't even thought about writing a Knife post; I haven't thought much about food. I have pages of Eater LA entries to catch up on.
Cut to today, about 30 minutes ago. I emerge from two back-to-back meetings with my blood sugar grazing the floor. And at my cubicle is a rectangular white cardboard box sealed with the Sugarfish logo. Inside are crab and toro cut rolls; tuna sashimi; salmon; albacore and halibut sushi. Edamame. Wasabi and pickled ginger. Soy sauce and ponzu.
Good God. Correction: Sushi delivered by the right hand of God.
Is it perfect? Well, no, not by Nozawaian standards. The seaweed on the sushi doesn't dissolve in your mouth and the rice isn't barely warm, of course; instead, the grains have a tendency to stick to the cardboard. Edamame looks a little wan, as it often does shortly after steaming.
But! Who cares? The beans inside the edamame pods are meaty and well seasoned. The rice is so delicious that I keep stopping between paragraphs to pick up the remaining grains with my fingers. It's a stroke of genius to include a tiny container of finely sliced scallions rather than dumping them in the ponzu, where its acidity would quickly render them limp.
And most of all, the fish. The fish, the fish, the fish. We've all had take-out sushi and some are good, most are OK and too many are awful. However, I've never had take-out sushi that was sweet and fresh and didn't have any hint of fishiness, even when it had been prepared only 20 minutes before. Which makes sense: You're not going to save your best stuff for the take-out crowd, which isn't looking for a dining experience; they just want to eat, for crissake, and quickly.
And that's the Nozawa advantage. He's been a fish snob for so long that he can build an empire around it. Yes, Sushi Nozawa is better than Sugarfish, but when the mothership is that good, you've got room for error. And so it goes with takeout. I'm sure that takeout Sugarfish is not as good as in-house Sugarfish, but it is better than any other takeout sushi you've ever had (and more than a few sushi restaurants).
That said, until Nozawa starts delivery, I probably won't have his sushi at my desk again; Marina Del Rey is just too much of a schlep. But the next time I fly out of LAX, everyone on my aisle is going to be very jealous.
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