"I'm not an expert at making sushi," says David Gelb, with a pair of chopsticks poised above a plate of tuna sashimi at Sugarfish by Sushi Nozawa downtown, "but I'm an expert at eating sushi." After filming 150 hours of footage at Sukiyabashi Jiro, the famed Michelin three-star sushi bar in Tokyo's Ginza district, the 28-year-old director of the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" knows a thing or two about nigiri and maki. "I like that the seaweed here is crispy," he says of a toro hand roll, into which he deftly pours a drop or two of soy sauce. Gelb's film is set to premiere in Los Angeles on Friday, and he has just returned from its debut in New York. The movie, which showed at last year's Tribeca Film Festival and was bought by Magnolia Pictures, has captured the attention of more than just food lovers, as Gelb has been talking up sushi-porn scenes and the importance of rice preparation on the media circuit. Naturally, the fooderati are drooling. "I think I was lucky," says Gelb, dressed in a black T-shirt and bright blue Adidas sneakers.

"Part of it is that there hasn't been a film about this level of sushi." Although reviews have been mixed, he says the goal was to film something "restrained and elegant" instead of relying on the "reality show kind of camera" usually aimed at food and cooking subjects. sumo sushi menu el paso"I wanted to show sushi as an art form."sushi meister spiel online The artist behind the sushi is Jiro Ono, the much-revered octogenarian proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny restaurant that seats 10 next to a subway exit in the basement of a Tokyo office building. where to buy sushi grade fish in bristol"He's a perfectionist in everything that he does, even the way he walks," says Gelb. jiro dreams of sushi rent itunes

"Look at his posture." An example of Ono's quest for perfection is detailed in the movie through an apprentice's attempts to prepare Ono's tamago, which Gelb says includes a mix of shrimp puree, grated mountain yam, sake and egg, turned into a custard-like cake. sushi grade ahi tuna onlineThe apprentice had to make it more than 200 times -- yes, 200 -- before it met Ono's approval. sushi grade fish nhTamago "is so misunderstood," Gelb says. jiro dreams of sushi on demand"Americans don't appreciate the egg." But it's the glistening fish that is the showstopper (shot mainly on a Red One digital camera), particularly during an omakase dinner scene of sushi close-ups set to Mozart. Each luscious slice of fish is shot so that the audience can see it settle on a pillow of rice.

In front of a row of rapt diners, a baroque piece of hamaguri clam softly droops as a rivulet of sauce follows the curve of one edge. "I didn't get do-overs with the sushi," Gelb says. "With that shallow, delicate focus the margin of error is greater than if I'd used the 'reality show camera.' I knew it was going to be a cornerstone of the film." Meanwhile, the film's tension centers around the somewhat discomfiting relationship between Ono and his oldest son and heir apparent, Yoshikazu Ono, who's in the position of waiting for Jiro to retire, only to try to fill some very big geta. And the Onos' reaction to the film? "Yoshikazu came to the Berlinale" last year for a screening, and "said it was OK. That's the highest approval I would expect." "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" opens Friday at the Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. In Japanese, with English subtitles. Check out UCLA's "Science and Food" public lecture series It's Taco Tuesday, at My Taco this week

Dario Cecchini plans visit to Valentino "Jiro Dreams of Sushi"/Magnolia PicturesHip-hop star gives a masterclass in fine dining photography etiquette When you buy a video, you can watch it now, or download the video to a compatible device and watch it later. Complete info about your viewing rights are in the Terms of Use. When you rent, the viewing period is 14 days from the time of your order or 48 hours from the time you start to watch, whichever comes first.Every year, thousands of people pay more than $350 to eat sushi at a 10-seater restaurant in a Tokyo subway station, making reservations at least a month in advance to dine at one of the few fast-food stands in the world to earn three stars from the Michelin guide. The proprietor, Jiro Ono, is in his mid-80s, and has spent his life innovating and refining, always asking himself, “What defines deliciousness?” David Gelb’s documentary Jiro Dreams Of Sushi shows what a meal at Sukiyabashi Jiro is like: each morsel prepared simply and perfectly, then replaced by another as soon as the previous piece is consumed, with no repetition of courses.

Once an item is gone, it doesn’t come back. That’s why each one has to be memorable. Jiro Dreams Of Sushi also covers Ono’s background and his family, including his two grown sons: the elder has been waiting patiently for decades to take over the business, and the younger runs a more casual version of his dad’s restaurant across town. Gelb talks to a top Japanese food critic who explains what makes Ono’s sushi so sublime, and shadows Ono’s apprentices, who have to learn how to properly wring a hot towel before he’ll allow them to slice a fish or cook an egg. He also follows Ono’s vendors, who adhere to the philosophy “If 10 tuna are for sale, only one can be the best.” But while everyone takes their jobs seriously, Gelb’s documentary is far from humorless. At one point, Ono probably speaks for some people in the audience when he jokes that one of his vendors “seems so knowledgeable, I worry that he’s making it up.” Even at a brief 81 minutes, Jiro Dreams Of Sushi runs a little longer than it needs to, given that it’s making the same point over and over: that it takes uncommon dedication to repeat the same steps every day for decades, always looking for ways to make the process better, not easier.