F&W Taste Test: Best Caramel Sauces Editor's Choice: F&W's 10 Best Dessert Recipes of 2015 The Best New Gift for Gin Drinkers The Baller Way to Travel to Pebble Beach Food & Wine Now You Can Buy The Meatball Shop’s Awesome Tomato Sauce Top 10 Food Products of 2012 Bid Now in MOFAD’s Epic Online Auction Editor Picks: Top 5 Coffee Splurges of 2012 These Ultra-Cool EVERCUT Knives Will Stay Sharp for 25 Years Best Super Bowl Drinks, or How to Hide in the Kitchen Eating Nachos and Lighting Fruit on Fire to Avoid Football Sushi nerds, the time has come to stop lamenting that you can’t drop by the Tokyo fish market every morning. Sushi nerds, the time has come to stop lamenting that you can’t drop by the Tokyo fish market every morning. One of America’s top suppliers of pristine, meant-to-be-eaten-raw fish is now selling directly to consumers. Until now, seafood from the Honolulu Fish Company went only to top restaurants like Michael White’s Marea.

For years, chefs have prized the company’s wild, line-caught fish (all of which comes from Hawaii) for its smooth, buttery texture and glassy, shimmering appearance, as well as its amazing flavor. order sushi winnipegIt’s all sashimi-grade, which (though the term isn’t regulated by law) connotes a specific, labor-intensive way of processing and preparing the fish for raw consumption.how much sushi vinegar for 2 cups of rice One of the prime offerings is rich, steak-red ahi tuna (which is, by the way, sustainable), but the company also sells lesser-known varieties that are rarely seen on the mainland. sushi making kit reviewsFish like ono (a.k.a. wahoo), opah and kajiki (Hawaiian blue marlin) are less pricey than tuna but just as incredible, served raw as sashimi or poke, a classic Hawaiian dish of marinated raw fish.sushi london ontario downtown

This amazing fish isn’t cheap—it starts at around $100 for three pounds—but shipping is included and it arrives in specially designed packaging that reflects heat. how to eat sushi the oatmeal Related: 13 Recipes for Whole Fish26 Healthy Fish Recipes18 Gifts for the Advanced Home Cookjiro dreams of sushi recension Need a gift card? where to buy sushi roller mat Join Our Digital Mail Club Subscribe to Roll Call for events, news and more.For the latest store offerings, trends, events and promotions, sign up to be in the know! Hours: MON-TUES: 11:00 AM - 9:00 PMWED-THURS: 11:00 AM - 10:00 PMFRI: 11:00 AM - 11:00 PMSAT: Noon - 11:00 PMSUN: 11:00 AM - 9:00 PM To make a reservation, please click here.

Not your typical sushi restaurant, Uni Sushi gives its diners an unparalleled experience in taste and ambiance with its sophisticated Japanese/European fusion cuisine. For the die-hard sushi fan, Uni Sushi boasts a menu of unique specialty rolls, including the wildly-popular “Millenium” roll, filled with spicy tuna topped with peppercorn tuna and avocado drizzled with ponzu sauce and sesame oil. Uni Sushi is not all about fish, however. Sushi-shy diners can enjoy such delicacies as champagne apple pork tenderloin, split bone-in rib-eye steak, steamed snapper, and lobster tail tempura fried with Japanese mint salsa. Our Lunch Plate Bentos also offer an array of unique items such as Eggroll Prawns and Rib-Eye Beef Rolls as well as the usual Teriyaki Chicken and Shrimp Tempura. The ambiance is exceptional as restaurant-goers find themselves immersed in an Art Deco style dining room with low-light chandeliers and onyx columns topped with granite. Uni Sushi also features a sit-in sushi bar and an upscale cocktail bar serving fine liquors, champagnes, and cocktails.

I’m an equal opportunity eater. I’ve been known to take down duck hearts, shredded pig ears, and even lamb testicles.Needless to say, I definitely enjoyed foie gras before The Law got involved. But I’ve been keeping an eye out for the next luxe food du jour, the decadent replacement for us San Franciscans with a penchant for animal parts.I’ve heard talk of truffles popping up in pastas, in cheese, and in oil form. There’s also the ubiquitous bacon, which really is everywhere. But for a real foie alternative that evokes the creamy, rich, oh-my-god-I-want-to-eat-bowls-of-this-eye-rolling ecstasy, the answer can be found just off the Northern California coast.Also known as uni, those spiky creatures with the silken innards are the new foie gras. Complete with a sustainable, whole animal ethos, uni makes everything taste a little more awesome, whether it’s mixed into pasta, served atop toast, or eaten raw straight from the shell.Uni can be tough to get into. The texture is unique, the flavor a surprising mix of sweetness and ocean brine (plus, you are eating the sea urchin’s gonads).

But this is a food in which perseverance pays off. Tim Archuleta, executive chef of sushi destination ICHI, hated uni the first nine times he tried it. “I gagged every time!” he says, slicing cucumbers at lightning speed for the evening’s service. “The tenth time, the clouds parted and I’ve never gone back since. Now, it’s my favorite thing ever.”Tim gave me some tips for spotting quality uni. First, there are multiple classes of uni — A, B, and C — with A being the highest (it will be sweeter, with a bright yellow or gold color). A is then broken down into AAA, AA, and A levels, which further specifies the freshness, texture, and flavor. Second, take note of the appearance. “See how firm, how intact it is,” Tim explains. “When uni starts to age, it starts to break down entirely.”Great uni should be sweet, with a touch of metallic, ocean brine. Per Tim’s description, “It’s like making out with a mer-person.”And know what you’re eating. Northern California uni has a robust, bold flavor, while Japanese uni is more mild.

If the taste throws you, trying a Japanese import is a good place to start.Fortunately, San Francisco has all kinds of delicious uni dishes to get you going. Check out six of my favorites, along with some suggestions for others to try.Nigiri is definitely one of the most recognizable ways of eating uni. ICHI’s version is unbeatable — perfectly textured vinegared rice is topped with a creamy, almost melting dollop of unctuous Fort Bragg urchin. The dish is lightly seasoned with house soy sauce and a crumble of wasabi. The nigiri preparation is Tim’s favorite uni approach, too: “The combination of vinegared rice, toasted seaweed, and sweet uni, that’s the best.”Save the best for last. The chefs at ICHI serve uni nigiri as the “dessert” of their omakase meals.When it comes to eating live urchin straight from the shell, there’s no beating Swan Oyster, the always-packed seafood destination. Co-owner Tom Sancimino tells us that our rizzi, the Sicilian term for sea urchin, hails from the coast north of Fort Bragg.

He halves the spiked urchin shell before gently removing the pink tongues of uni to rinse the inner juices, which are “kind of bitter.”Once set down, I see that the urchin spines are moving — sometimes with enough vigor to gently scrape the plate. But spooning out each fillet (five total, dressed with a squeeze of lemon, per Tom’s suggestion) emphasizes just why these urchins need such vicious defenses: the creamy, custardy texture melts in my mouth, pooling into the light, sweet richness of the best urchin accentuated with a touch of metallic tang. Shark Kapenko, a Swan Oyster regular who’s sitting next to me, wisely declares, “It’s like eating fish ice cream.”Tim from ICHI notes that with live urchin you don’t always know what you’re going to get when you split the shell. Trust the experts (like Swan Oyster), and ask plenty of questions about the age and origin of your uni.Bar Crudo may pack in the crowds for its epic happy hour, but the uni avocado toast is worth a dip into the regular dinner menu.

Each serving includes two crostini-style toasts that use olive oil–crisped French bread as a base. Avocado is mashed and spritzed with sudachi (a Japanese citrus similar to lime) before two plump fillets of Mendocino uni are added to each toast. The avocado adds texture and richness but the flavor here is all uni, punched up with bright citrus and a sprinkling of salt.The toasts are served with a spicy-bitter slaw of frisée and peppers that are also doused with a squeeze of sudachi. Keep it on the side — it makes for a nice flavor contrast with the rich-sweet toasts without dominating the flavor.For a whole different kind of uni-filled sandwich, try the uni hotate at Chotto — rich, creamy urchin is layered between buttery slices of hokkaido scallop.Seeing that uni is basically the butter of the sea, there are some serious uni comfort foods out there. The uni flan from Fifth Floor is one of them. One of chef David Bazirgan’s most popular dishes, the flan (featuring Mendocino uni from Water 2 Table) has been on the menu since he began his tenure at the restaurant.

The warm, savory custard is primarily composed of uni and egg, and topped with Dungeness crab fondue, whole uni, saffron “air,” and aged kaffir lime zest. The air is aesthetically nice, but the flavor is all rich, buttery seafood, from the melting flan to the meaty butter-cooked crab. The uni on top emphasizes the subtle difference between straight uni and the more mellow, buttery flan.Fifth Floor’s flan is a warmed-up riff on chawanmushi, a traditional Japanese egg custard made with uni. Try other delicious versions at Izakaya Yuzuki, Skool, and Mission Chinese.Imagine everything you could ever want when hung over, then make it better. That’s how good this menu staple from chef Matthew Accarrino is. Using smoked flour as a base for his fresh fettuccine, Matt figured adding bacon to an uni pasta couldn’t be bad. “Then I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to put a quail egg on top?” he says. Comforting and innovative, he feels that the dish is a good representation of his cooking style overall.

“It combines, good, simple ingredients with great technique.”The resulting dish is more than a little fun. Pliant, silken strands of the smoky fettuccine are studded with meaty bacon pieces and coated with a blend of uni and butter, and there’s a deep richness from the runny poached quail egg. It’s so popular that it never comes off the menu, and the restaurant goes through huge amounts of Mendocino uni to meet the demand (it uses “black label sushi quality” uni from the Mendocino coast). Apparently, one of the restaurant’s regulars refers to the dish as her “warm hug.” Digging in, I absolutely understand what she means.Urchin is a common ingredient in Italian pasta dishes. Tim loves a version that’s often on the menu at La Ciccia, which includes uni and shaved, cured tuna heart on top.Flans and pastas make for good uni intro dishes — they showcase the rich flavor without making you deal with the texture. Uni on the Spoon at Nihon Whisky Lounge is another story entirely.