Hip-hop star gives a masterclass in fine dining photography etiquetteEvery 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. sushi garden menu brightonAt 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.”buy sushi equipment uk 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. buy sushi equipment uk

But Gelb creates a peaceful, contemplative mood with his long shots of men delicately molding fish onto rice, such that when Ono walks past a blaring shopping-mall video-screen at one point, the intrusion of the modern world seems out of place. In the end, maybe Ono and his staff are deluding themselves when they say their goal is to present each ingredient at its peak moment of tastiness. But this movie argues persuasively that it’s that constant pursuit of improvement—even to the best sushi in the world—that gives us all a reason to wake up and punch in.sushi for you online bestellenSushi BluSushi 2012Sushi DvdJiro'S SushiSeat SushiSushi BarsSushi FilmSushi CookbookSushi CinemaForwardJiro Dreams of Sushi- An AMAZING documentary about an 85-year-old sushi master who has become a legacy in Tokyo for creating the world's most perfect sushi and is training his son to take over his legacy when he retires. sushi los angeles little tokyo

Inspiring story that would be great for a family documentary night!In my favorite episode of Chef’s Table, a new, six-episode series premiering on Netflix this Sunday, April 26, the famous Argentine chef Francis Mallmann guts a couple of brook trout, then washes them clean by dragging them around in a lake. It's just a regular day in Mallmann land. Francis Mallmann roasts chickens over a fire in Chef’s Table.is jiro dreams of sushi good Then he uses soft, wet clay he's just dug from the water to seal the fish up, and places the bundle on a low fire to slowly cook in its own steam. sushi plate sets canadaIt's an old, uncomplicated technique, but it's beautiful to watch him work. The best moments in this new series, each episode profiling a different chef around the world, let you quietly observe what goes on behind the scenes, equal parts food porn and character study.

This is Mallmann in his natural habitat, the vast wilderness, speaking about what he does in a characteristically poetic way. Things could easily get goofy, and sometimes they do: "When you build a fire, it's a bit like making love," Mallmann says at one point. Later he reads poetry by the dying firelight. An hour-long boat ride takes Mallmann to his home on an island. But David Gelb (who directed the lauded Jiro Dreams of Sushi, about Japanese sushi master Jiro Ono) has created a documentary series that explores complex stories about his subjects, without letting them get too cartoonish. Mallmann is the romantic, wandering the hills for firewood, reading poetry by the firelight, but he's more than that, too. Red pepper egg with everything, a dish from Dan Barber. As Mallmann grills whole lambs, and hangs chickens over the coals, the episode goes into his past, to tell the story of how Mallmann, who was born in Buenos Aires but raised in Patagonia, came to reject French fine dining and "making fancy French food for rich Argentines," and went on to champion his own rustic, homegrown cooking techniques and ingredients.

It didn't happen overnight. Chances are you're already familiar with the other chef subjects, which include Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy; Ben Shewry of Attica in Melbourne; and Magnus Nilsson of Fäviken in Järpen, Sweden. Two episodes feature American chefs: Dan Barber of Blue Hill in NYC and Niki Nakayama of N/Naka in Los Angeles. I was skeptical of the series at first. Do all these chefs deserve the Jiro treatment? After all, these chefs are famous—properly, internationally famous—and their stories have been told so many times, in so many glossy magazines, that I wondered if there would be any surprises. Salted kangaroo from Attica. Chef’s Table goes deeper into each chef's story and often nudges a bit at uncomfortable themes that most puff pieces tend to leave out, like Shewry's harsh financial struggles. Nakayama, who was not expected by her immediate family to succeed, talks about this only briefly, but the episode goes back to this theme of drive and perseverance in subtle, moving ways.