"There are many times, particularly in Buffalo, when we realize that we've fed our dogs better sushi than what we're in the process of eating at a new restaurant."
This is one of our dogs, Daiginjo Sake (pronounced die-gen-joe sah-kay), who was named after the highest quality of Japan's famous rice wine. We call him Sake for short. He's a Siberian Husky, and thanks to breed dietary restrictions, we're supposed to make sure that his food consists substantially of rice and meats or fish. As conscientious owners, we've taken this responsibility seriously - even when we're picking the leftovers he's allowed to eat.
Back in California, when we used to go to business lunches with so much sushi that no one at the table could eat another bite, we started to bring home the remaining pieces for Sake. These are shots of his first encounter with Tomikawa's Sunrise Roll, an Americanized but delicious, deluxe maki roll consisting of Cajun tuna, spicy tuna, bonito flakes, onions, and rice. We'd love to show other photos of Sake with his sushi, but after this first brief encounter, he never paused long enough for a picture before devouring whatever was left for him.
These images have been seared into our consciousness, and thus there are many times, particularly in Buffalo, when we realize that we've fed our dogs better sushi than what we're in the process of eating at a new restaurant. Fresh fish, rice, and vegetables shouldn't be a challenge for trained chefs to cut, season, and serve, yet at too many restaurants, the art of making sushi has devolved into something mechanical and unfulfilling. When you're eating at a relatively expensive restaurant and the pieces you're getting taste worse than the stuff you'd find at a buffet or a Tokyo area conveyor belt sushi shop, something's wrong.
After many visits to top sushi restaurants in Japan, the United States, and of course Western New York, Buffalo Chow knows and cares about the difference between bad, fine, good, and great sushi. We will, as one of our missions, make sure that the area's few excellent sushi places receive special attention for getting the art of sushi preparation "right," and that other places are called out for faking the funk.
Updated December 25, 2008: Our other dog, Roman, is shown deliberating whether to risk eating Wegmans sushi in this new review.
