Jiro Dreams Of Sushi Director: David Gelb Genre: Documentary Running Time: 81 minutes Rated PG for mild thematic elements and brief smoking With: Jiro Ono, Yoshikazu Ono In Japanese with subtitles A bite-sized view of Japanese culture, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, is nearly as meticulous as its subjects, Jiro Ono and his Tokyo restaurant. The movie's first word is oishi, Japanese for "delicious," and what follows is a treat for sushi veterans. First-timers, however, may wish for a little more context. The crux of David Gelb's documentary can be expressed in numbers: Ono still works daily, although he was 85 when the movie was shot in 2010. His top-priced restaurant, Sukiyabashi Jiro, has but 10 seats, yet earned three Michelin stars. Small restaurants are common in Japan, as are family-run businesses like Ono's. But most modestly sized Japanese eateries don't draw gourmets from around the world, or charge upwards of $300 (depending, of course, on the exchange rate) for a 30-minute meal.

Ono's is a tale of discipline, ritual and obsessiveness, all of which are characteristic of Japanese craftsmen — especially the ones who had to rebuild their country and their lives after World War II. For Ono, who as a young boy was abandoned by his father, hard times started well before American bombs began falling on his homeland. Two of the movie's main supporting characters, Ono's sons, have a somewhat different perspective. They never experienced the deprivations that still motivate their father. But both have accepted Dad's profession and techniques. The older, Yoshikazu, is second-in-charge at the original restaurant, in the basement of an office building in the upscale Ginza district. He will replace his father when — or should that be if? — the old man retires. Takashi, who seems to have gotten the better deal, runs a more affordable branch of Sukiyabashi Jiro in Roppongi, a less staid Tokyo neighborhood. Gelb sometimes takes his digital camera outside the two restaurants, although only once to document a personal trip.

The movie's chief off-site destination is the city's massive, bustling Tsukuji market. Yoshikazu once dreamed of being a race-car driver; now he dutifully bicycles to nearby Tsukuji every morning to buy fish. The family's dealings with merchants are revealing. Jiro Ono may appear to be the ultimate traditionalist, yet the left-handed sushi master sees himself as something of a maverick. The Onos buy from a demanding tuna dealer who's considered "anti-establishment." When Ono and a rice merchant discuss the worthiness of certain clients, the two sound more like cultists than connoisseurs. The movie's guide to such culinary arcana is Masuhiro Yamamoto, a restaurant critic who occasionally slips into English for such words as "perfectionist." It's Yamamoto who oversees a meal that was arranged for the movie. Gelb didn't shoot during regular business hours, so the film lacks the spontaneity and serendipity of cinema-verite documentaries. The restaurant's course order is "like a concerto," we're told, and Gelb choreographs food-preparation sequences to the music of such methodical composers as Bach, Mozart and Philip Glass.

The accompaniment is obtrusive at times, but its precise structures suit the movie's tidy outlook. Even the seemingly fanciful title turns out to be entirely earnest: Ono says that he does indeed dream of raw fish and vinegared rice. buy sushi seaweed sheetsIn one of the Tsukuji scenes, the documentary concedes that the oceans are fast emptying of Sukiyabashi Jiro's crucial ingredients. can you eat sushi rice when pregnantBut that's a rare moment when Jiro Dreams of Sushi acknowledges the world beyond Ono's fastidious 10-seat universe.can you cook sushi rice in a steamer Cameras Follow World's Greatest Sushi Chefhow to sushi rice youtube

Here’s your Zen koan for today: Is it possible to create something so pure in its simplicity that it disappears?Sure it is, answers “Jiro Dreams of Sushi,” a new documentary by David Gelb. Just come down to Jiro Ono’s tiny restaurant in the basement of a Tokyo office building, near the Ginza subway stop. There you will be presented with what many food connoisseurs consider the finest sushi on the planet, gastronomic objects unparalleled in their unadorned elegance. Seconds later, they’ll be gone.Be prepared to make your reservations at least a month in advance, though, and expect a bill starting at $365; also, don’t hope for much in the way of ambience. Sukiyabashi Jiro holds only 10 seats, doesn’t offer appetizers, and is a bare-bones experience that’s purely about the fish. A food critic named Yamamoto admits he’s nervous every time he eats there, whether from the pressure of living up to the food or simply from being in the presence of God.“Jiro Dreams of Sushi” is a foodie’s delight, obviously, and best seen either on a full stomach or with restaurant reservations immediately following.

Gelb films the preparation of the nigiri with appropriate reverence: soaring strings on the soundtrack as knives glide through the red, glistening chunks of tuna in slo-mo close-up. But the film says as much about the human price one pays for perfection — or the pursuit thereof — and it’s not in dollars or yen.At 85, Ono is the acknowledged master of his art. Michelin gave Sukiyabashi Jiro a rare three-star rating, meaning that it’s “worth traveling to the country just to eat there.” Superstar chef Anthony Bourdain has bowed down and declared his unworthiness, and the Japanese government has named Jiro a living national treasure. In person, he’s smiling but ascetic, a lean, weathered artisan whose devotion to his craft is complete. Gelb’s camera follows him to the Tsukiji fish market, where we get a hint of what makes Ono’s sushi stand out from the pack (he has special arrangements with vendors whose standards are as exacting as his). Would you be willing to massage an octopus for 45 minutes, until its flesh possesses just the right amount of chewability?

“It always has to taste better than last time,” he says.It’s not that Ono’s past is unimportant; he just doesn’t have much of one. Having left home at 9 — and being told by his parents not to come back — he became a sushi apprentice at a time when the food was still sold in the streets of Tokyo, well before it achieved global fame with the introduction of the California roll in the 1980s. We see old photos of Jiro in his youth, but they convey little. More compellingly complicated is the master’s relationship with his two sons. The elder, Yoshikazu, is still his father’s apprentice at 50, and he wonders if he’ll ever be his own man. (”Jiro’s ghost will always be there watching,” he says with resignation at one point.)A younger son, Takashi, is charged with the lesser task of managing a second restaurant, in Roppongi Hills, identical to the mother ship in every respect other than that everything’s reversed (the father’s a lefty, the son a righty). Both sons wanted to go to college, but Ono wouldn’t let them, and Yoshikazu says he hated making sushi at first.