2181 Irving Street (at 23rd Avenue) 415-566-6433 The Chowhound Bay Area Boards tipped me off about places where I could buy sushi grade salmon in the San Francisco area. Sushi grade Ahi isn't so difficult to source but the salmon seems more elusive. Places you might expect to be able to buy it like Wholefoods or The Ferry Building Plaza actually didn't stock it when I tried. From all of the Chowhound suggestions, I decided to journey over to Yum Yum's over in the Sunset district. It doesn't look much from the outside. Large hand written boards alert you to what is fresh, what is frozen, what is on offer. The fish counter actually doesn't look all that special, but when I asked for a piece of "Centre-cut salmon", a new piece of fish was retrieved from the back of the store for me, by my charming French server. My recipe called for just 5 ounces of fish but when I saw how small it was, and how brightly it glistened, I asked him for another slice the same size. Fresh, beautiful and only $5 for these two superb slices of fish.

It took a lot of will power not to gobble it straight down as I prepared my recipe. Yum Yum also serves sushi to go or to eat at one of the tiny tables nestled inside. Becks & Posh has been nominated for and in the 2004 Food Blog Awards. Yum Yum Fish - Irving Street - San FranciscoNow open on Bush between Franklin and Gough, Akira offers Lower Pac Heights neighbors fresh sushi and sashimi, as well as seasonal Japanese specialties.sushi conveyor belt hong kong The restaurant's opening marks an achievement for chef/owner Minh Son and his wife Judy Young, both immigrants to San Francisco who set out four years ago to open their own business.sushi making kit with dvd Son has trained as a sushi chef since 1997, including a 15-year tenure at (now closed) Kiku of Tokyo within the Hilton Union Square. cooking sushi rice with mirin

There he learned the tradition and practice of making Japanese food, which he continues in his own iteration at Akira. The couple purchased the Chinese restaurant that formerly occupied this address with the intention of an overhaul. “We saw this location as having good proximity between Japantown and downtown in an area with rents that are still affordable,” Young said. The restaurant works with a vendor to provide fresh fish directly from Japan. sushi grade fish london ontarioLocal products, such as Santa Barbara uni and Dungeness crab, are interspersed on the menu with Japanese specialties such as barracuda ($9.50 for nigiri). feng sushi delivery menuDespite the fish’s ferocious appearance, Chef Son attests to the delicacy of barracuda when eaten raw.best sushi london knightsbridge

Besides sushi and sashimi, Akira offers kaiseke-style cuisine, which incorporates seasonal offerings served with Japanese balance and grace. At dinner, one kaiseke-style option is the omakase tasting menu ($90), a nine-course meal that changes with the seasons. And at lunch, a traditional bento box special includes a seasonally rotating selection of five small dishes ($17; sashimi, tempura, broiled fish, soup and pickle) in line with the culinary tradition.best place to buy sushi grade fish san francisco Young is specifically proud of the restaurant’s dobin mushi ($15), a special preparation of the coveted matsutake mushroom, imported from Japan and only available in the fall and early winter. “It’s a combination of seafood, tofu and the mushroom, which are steeped in a broth within a small Japanese teapot,” she explains. Young hopes the small space will provide a respite for neighborhood residents to unwind after work or during quiet weekends. 

“Our first priority is to be a restaurant for the neighborhood,” she said. Akira is open for lunch from 11:30am-2:30pm Mondays through Fridays. Dinner is served from 5-10pm Mondays through Thursdays, and 5-10:30pm Fridays and Saturdays. Beer, wine and sake are available, and diners are welcome at tables or the sushi bar. Reservations can be made online or by calling 415-800-8498.With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I know some of you are planning a homemade sushi dinner. Whether this is your first time or you’re a seasoned pro, making sushi at home can be simple, fun, and rewarding. I’ve written before on how to make sushi rolls and Adrianna recently did a post on temaki, but the question I get asked the most is some version of “how do I know if the fish at my store is safe to eat raw?”. The term “sushi-grade” is often tossed around to imply some level of freshness, but in the US, there’s no regulation around the use of the phrase, so it can be used to describe anything.

That said, most stores aren’t in the business of getting their customers sick, so they usually reserve the label for their freshest fish. Unfortunately, just because it’s fresh doesn’t mean it’s safe to eat raw. Some fish, such as salmon, contain parasites that will make you sick unless they’ve been destroyed. Another potential problem is cross-contamination. This happens when “sushi-grade” fish gets cut on the same cutting board or using the same knife or handled with the same gloves as non-sushi-grade fish. If your fishmonger is storing unwrapped sushi-grade fish in the same refrigerated case as non-sushi-grade fish, this should be a big red flag. For fish that contain parasites, the FDA provides guidance under their Parasite Destruction Guarantee. This states in part that fish intended to be consumed raw must be “frozen and stored at a temperature of -20°C (-4°F) or below for a minimum of 168 hours (7 days)”. Cross contamination is a bigger issue. Because most stores don’t sell a high enough volume of fish intended to be eaten raw, they don’t maintain a separate space for handling their “sushi-grade” fish.

What’s worse, because tuna is such a large fish, most stores don’t deal with whole tuna, they buy them pre-filleted, which means you have to take into consideration not only the stores handling of the fish, but their supplier’s handling of the fish as well. Ultimately, what it comes down to is how much you trust your fishmonger to understand the best practices for handling fish meant to be consumed raw, and how much they trust their suppliers to hold the same standards. Here are a few things to remember when buying fish to ensure you have a safe and delicious sushi-dinner: Observe and see for yourself whether they’re cutting their sushi-grade fish on the same cutting board as their other fish, without changing gloves or disinfecting their knife and board first. Ask whether they fillet the fish you’re looking to buy themselves, or if they’re getting them pre-filleted. If you are buying salmon, ask if they can produce logs that show the times and temperatures that the fish was frozen.