David Gelb's mouth-watering documentary takes us downstairs at a Tokyo metro station, where 85-year-old masterchef Jiro Ono is quietly devoting his life to sushi perfection Watch Jiro: Dreams of Sushi here Click here to put a question to director David Gelb in a live webchat Reading on a mobile? Click here to watch video One of the best lines in Jiro Dreams of Sushi could have come straight out of another great Japanese film – Tampopo, the brilliant "noodle western" that is the funniest film ever made about food. Where Tampopo was a satirical paean to ramen, Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a fascinating documentary about a Michelin three-star restaurant in Tokyo, called Jiro, which serves top-quality sushi – and only top-quality sushi – starting at 30,000 yen (£210) for a 20-piece tasting course. A food critic quips that, because the meal can be eaten in only a quarter of an hour, Jiro is minute-for-minute the most expensive restaurant in the world. Yet with its 10 seats, total lack of decor and bizarre location in a featureless, fluorescent-lit corridor down a set of stairs in Ginza metro station, Jiro is as unassuming as its master chef, 85-year-old Jiro Ono.

For 75 uninterrupted years, since before the outbreak of the second world war, every day except for national holidays and the occasional Sunday, Jiro has spent all of his time devoted to doing just one thing: making sushi.sushi garden menu pueblo "I wasn't much of a father," Jiro says. ichiban sushi menu beaches"More of a stranger." sushi to go pobladoHis dedication to his tradecraft is guaranteed to put you and everyone you know to shame. sumo sushi menu granite bayIn Jiro's regime, apprentices – one of whom is his eldest son Yoshi, who at 50 is considered still too green to take over the family business – must spend 10 years learning to use their knives before they're allowed to cook even eggs. where to buy sushi grade fish in maryland

To become a shokunin, a skilled craftsman, someone who does the same exact thing every day to the highest possible level in the neverending pursuit of perfection. We meet a cast of obsessives – the rice guy, the shrimp guy – who lead us to the film's centrepiece, the great singing tuna auctioneers of Tsukiji fish market. where to buy sushi grade fish in salt lake cityWith the market about to be moved to a soulless new venue, this section of the film amounts to a historically important bit of documentary. buy sushi grade salmon los angelesAnd if you don't want to punch the air yourself when Jiro leans forward with 75 years of fire in his eyes and fervently extols the "harmony of fish, sushi rice and soy sauce", then your blood runs colder than anago. Ono may be the center of this universe, but the real star of the film is the sushi, and the exquisite yet frustrating beauty with which the camera has captured it.

June 17, 2013 | A beautiful ode to an artisan and his culture. January 10, 2013 | Jiro Ono's exacting standards have earned him three Michelin stars, but it's his taciturn nature that spices and sours this documentary. The themes of age and appalling loss give the film a freakishly affecting lyricism. Jiro Dreams of Sushi sets a drool-flecked new standard in food porn, and makes the moanings and gruntings of Nigella Lawson look softcore by comparison. The exquisite nigiri slices gleam with freshness, and you do learn about the component parts to the perfect serving of sea eel or gizzard shad. January 8, 2013 | Would you like that sushi cooked? It’s unlikely that any of Jiro’s dreams of sushi involved cooked fish. But one group of Chinese tourists has come under fire for demanding just that – in one of the world’s finest sushi restaurants. The saga began last month, when a Chinese student studying in Japan posted online about her experience in Tokyo at a branch of the famed three-Michelin-star sushi joint that was the subject of the 2011 documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.”

Jiro is the name of the 85-year-old chef behind the restaurant, which has a wide fan base and has been visited by the likes of U.S. President Obama, who called it the “best sushi I’ve ever had in my life.” According to her account, she and her companions didn’t want to eat the raw sushi they were served and asked if it could be cooked, sparking a terse exchange with the chef. Her posts quickly went viral in China, with many microbloggers criticizing her behavior. In an interview, Takashi Ono, 52, the second son of Jiro Ono and manager of the Roppongi Hills restaurant, told China Real Time that he had refused to serve the diners cooked fish. We don’t work like that,” he said. He said the diners ate only four pieces of the meal before leaving. The meal they ordered included a sushi set, which runs at ¥17,000 ($168) per person, plus two large plates of sashimi. The diners paid for their meal in full, he said. The woman, who has lived in Japan for several years, posted her account of the restaurant online declined to be interviewed.

“Those are all top-level ingredients.  If you book, not finishing is disrespectful,” wrote one Weibo user. “How could you live in Japan for many years but still not know these basics?” After the furor, the woman deleted her original messages and posted an apology. Mr. Ono also said that she returned to the restaurant to apologize to him – an apology he says he accepted.She didn’t need to come back here and apologize, but she did, probably out of her conscience, or because of the flood of criticism she received,” he said. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pours sake for U.S. President Barack Obama as they have dinner at Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo. Mr. Ono attributed part of the problem to people simply being unfamiliar with authentic Japanese cuisine, with many having experienced it only in overseas Japanese restaurants that serve sushi alongside such items as cooked fish or tempura. And while the diners’ request may seem absurd to sushi aficionados, to those more familiar with the Chinese palate, it doesn’t come as such a surprise.

Chinese diners often prefer boiled water to cold water, believing it’s safer. And while dried meat and fish are common snacks, those of the raw variety aren’t commonly consumed in China. A-Qiang, a Chinese chef with 10 years’ experience at Japanese restaurants in Beijing, told China Real Time that he often hears requests for cooked sushi. “We remain calm when we see these strange things,” he said, noting that it’s common for Chinese to wrinkle their noses at the sight of raw meat or to ask for boiled sashimi because they see it as unsafe to eat. Back in Tokyo, Mr. Ono notes that although he occasionally receives requests from tourists to have their fish cooked, the popularity of the “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” documentary has helped to demystify the cuisine to many would-be diners. “There are now fewer customers like that after Jiro’s film came out, as more people now understand the way we think [of sushi],” he said. –Olivia Geng and Miho Inada