jiro dreams of sushi pronunciation
Well here’s a stereotype if ever there was one! Yes, we’re going there. And with a certain amount of pride. And justification, it has to be said. For Japan really does do sushi for all occasions; fast-food, fancy food, date food, ... the birthday dinner special. There isn’t a single get-together in Japan where a few servings of sushi won’t be warmly received. The question here though is, How much does it cost?Sushi Trainカッパ寿司 (Kappa-sushi) is the McDonald’s of sushi. Looked down upon by a few, but insanely popular with everyone else. With good reason, it’s cheap! And probably a bit healthier than the counterpart of this comparison.Most items on the menu/conveyor belt are 108 yen (inc. tax). Flashier bits of fish are 194 yen. Side menus of soups, desserts, and err fries go up to around ~ 300 yen.Step Up Sushiすしざんまい (Sushizanmai). The charismatic owner of this famous sushi restaurant chain, Kiyoshi Kimura, is the current record holder for having spent the most money on a tuna fish (around $1.8 million).
You’ve got to like the confidence!Sushi at TsukijiTokyo’s Tsukiji Market can safely lay claim to being one of the most famous places to buy/ship/eat fish in the world. There are no shortages of places to dine on sushi here.Perennial TripAdvisor favorite (and Traveler’s Choice ™ 2015 Winner) Sushi Dai, has a chief’s set for 4,000 yen (11 pieces + sliced sushi roll). A set of 7 pieces + sushi roll is 2,600 yen. No website but you can see pics and prices here.If you weren’t already aware, Tsukiji Market is moving shop (to somewhere very nearby). The market in its current guise is scheduled to close in November 2016.Supermarket SushiDepends on the supermarket really. At the flashy joint near this writer’s office in downtown Tokyo …8-piece sets: 500 - 700 yenSingle sushi rolls: ~120 yenLarge sliced sushi rolls: ~430 yenExpensive SushiWhen Barack Obama rolled into town in his bomb proof car (April 2014), where did they take him to eat (aside from the Imperial Palace)?, well none other than a sushi restaurant.
Not Kappa-sushi though, or even Sushizanmai. No, the incumbent leader of the free world was taken to the storied Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo’s Ginza district. Made famous by the 2011 documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the restaurant is probably now more (in)famous for its prices; tasting menu, 30,000 yen. Oh, and meals times clock in at an average of 30 mins! Well, this writer doesn’t know. And probably never will!Although not all of the nation’s best sushi restaurants reach the same price heights as Sukiyabashi Jiro, expect to be paying at least 10,000 yen in the classy joints.Have your own answer to the question, How much does sushi in Japan cost? ... join the conversation below.FacebookImagesTop: Flickr Middle: Flickr Bottom: Flickr LicenseIt looks like nothing was found at this location. Perhaps it was there but now it’s gone. Maybe try one of the links below or a search? 2017 Tsukiji Tuna by the Numbers Niigata – Sake Tasting at Echigo Yuzawa Station
Food Sake Tokyo Radar ArchivesTry looking in the monthly archives. Please check the address and try again. Get stuff done with Google DriveApps in Google Drive make it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more.There are so many versions of this story. A motley crew of ragtag ragamuffins, fallen from grace, perhaps a little elderly, are called to undertake a suicidal mission in the name of regained honor. The crew usually ranges from seven to twelve members, and bandits or Nazis may be involved. It goes by various names: The Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen, and now, finally and gloriously, China Gate.I count eleven. Is Twelve the dog?Well, if you've seen one of these movies (and hopefully you saw Kurosawa's Seven Samurai), you've seen them all. There's the Stoic Leader, the Hothead, the Young One, the Comic Relief. There are melodramatic moments where the past is dragged out, there is no help from the outside and much tension on the inside.
Most of the characters go out in a blazing glory during the final battle scene - if they don't just all blow up together - and usually it's our favorite character who dies first or most epically.But let's be thorough. Colonel Puri #1 (Om Puri) decides he can't take the shame of being a disgraced soldier anymore, and the only way he can cope is by killing himself. A young, distressed woman barges into his home with a horror story involving her father (a noble but sadly deceased police officer) and some savage bandits out in Eastcabum Nowhere, India. Won't Col. Puri help, pleeeeaze? Of course he will, it's something to live for. And dare he hope for it, that fleeting glimpse, that taste of... honor?! Col. Puri goes for it, calling up all his old army buddies. These include ten other balding, soft-around-the-middle men ranging from 45 to 65 years of age. Colonel Puri #2 (Amrish Puri) is the authoritarian father figure with a shaved head and bad ass. Major Gurung (Danny Dezongpa) is a hard-nosed ranger type who always walks around in Crocodile Dundee gear.
Major Gupta (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) is a businessman. But wait, someone important and very famous is missing! Of course, it's Major Sarfaraz Khan (Naseeruddin Shah), who's having trouble selling his garage (he's strapped for cash thanks to an upcoming Big Event). Once the crew is assembled, and a dog and Random Young Man beg to join in, they ride off to Eastcabum on their mission: Mission Kill Bandit Save Town Regain Honor!The rest is predictable. Young Man and the distressed, young woman fall in love. The gang of ancient soldiers bumble and fuss, not achieving very much, while Major Hard-ass tries to whip them into shape. The bandits run around, villagers scream, vultures endlessly circle. After three hours and NO SONGS, we have our first casualty, and the movie's interest value drops by one-fourth. Then the grand showdown in town, and... well, I'll let you watch the movie to see whether the bandits really are defeated this time.No singing for three hours?!This is Jagira, the bandit leader and villain.
He talks to vulture. The major pro of this movie is the fact that there are so many major pros in it. Naseer, Om, Amrish, Kulbhushan. All our old favorites, it filled us here at the PPCC with a warmth of familiarity and affectionate loyalty. Sure, if this was the only movie we had seen with Naseer, Om, Amrish or Kulbhushan, we at the PPCC would probably not be fans of any of them. But thanks to Masoom, Sparsh, Chakra, and even that punk-ass Orientalist gob, we were just happy to see them again, all together, so happy (if briefly). Oh joy, we could bask in the glow of Om's beautiful voice, Naseer's lovely emo, Amrish thinking we're all fools. Such a happy celluloid family! Another major pro of the movie is that it's an action movie, and Bollyaction brings video game sound effects and many indiscriminate explosions. Now onto the major drawbacks. First, there is no song except the mega-famous Chamma Chamma, and that comes far too late in the film when we at the PPCC had already guessed what grim plot twist was ahead.
Second, although we are heathens sometimes and actually thought The Seven Samurai was just a bit overlong, this movie still made us realize how many galaxies away Kurosawa's film was in terms of emotional depth. China Gate opens with the lines: "Our humble tribute to Akira Kurosawa", and we could not help but feel a little bad that it was, indeed, such a very humble tribute. Naseer leads children on pony rides. His character is the Angry (Older) Man who's good with kids. Do I sense shades of Toshiro's character in Seven Samurai? Yes indeedy, they just transplanted the Young Man's personality onto the Older Hothead for this one.The best part of the movie, for us, was actually the fascinating tension between Col. Puri #2 (Amrish) and Major Khan (Naseer). Although this may be painfully obvious and even a little trite to South Asian viewers, it took us a few moments to go, "Hey, wait, Puri is a Hindu name, Khan is a Muslim name... oooh, I get it now." (Also the fact that Puri is indeed Puri and Khan is played by a Shah, it's so fascinatingly meta.