The Way of the Sushi Chef Is Found In...

Every few months a friend will mention a new sushi place. What follows is generally the proclamation that X is the best ever to grace our native caliche and that the fish there is just as good as anything you can get in LA, NY, San Francisco, fill in the blank.

Which is, of course, all bullshit.

Sushi is, at base, extremely simple food. Fish and rice. The better those two ingredients are, the better the meal. And fish of better quality is available other places that are closer to the ocean, places that have things like wholesale fish markets. Superlative, blow your mind nigiri requires classically trained chefs steeped in hundreds of years of tradition. Those folks ain't moving to Tucson for a twelve dollar an hour job.

That said, Tucson certainly has its share of perfectly adequate sushi restaurants where the chefs care about what they're doing and try to make your experience as pleasurable as possible. And that's what it really is about.

When the fish is the same in this joint or that one, there's little about the menu itself that divides one place from another. That's especially true for those like myself who veer more closely to the nigiri/sashimi edge of the sushi spectrum. Seriously, if you're not a nineteen year old sorority girl, why are you having a caterpillar roll? Why? Because you don't like the taste of fish. The same way you drink wine coolers because you still want to get drunk without that nasty alcohol taste.

But I digress.

Here's what I'm looking for in a satisfactory sushi restaurant:

1. It must be clean.
2. Seriously, it has to be clean.
3. I don't want the spicy yellowtail on my roll to be scooped out of a plastic bin.
4. I also want it to still be recognizable to the naked eye as fish.
5. The rice must be prepared correctly. It should be sushi rice, should taste faintly of vinegar and not be over cooked.
6. See number 5.
7. Consistency.
8. Service that will get the hell out of my way and let me enjoy my lunch.

Sachiko, the name means, loosely, "Happiness," delivers all this. It is, to coin Hemingway, a clean, well-lighted place. The service is attentive, but not intrusive. The fish is reasonably fresh and consistently dressed.

It is a place of comfortable routine and cared for food. My wife and I live nearby and we frequent it with our children. My wife enjoys the noodle dishes. I enjoy my sashimi. My children enjoy the chopsticks and staring at the things I eat.

In the Hagekure, one of the very first phrases states that "[t]he Way of the Samurai is found in death." That's not pointless bravado. That's the acceptance of a core Zen principle as a way of life, that the way you do something is more important than the end result. That even if the desired result is not possible, that one will still live consciously. To the best of one's ability.

Sachiko Sushi will never be the best sushi restaurant on earth. It does not have the personnel or raw material available to equal the best that New York or Los Angeles has to offer. It doesn't need to.

It has a small core of family willing to work hard, to grasp the best things available to them, and to give you, and me, the best they can. Without let up. Day after day. That is a thing to be admired. And Sachiko Sushi is a restaurant to be frequented.

Seoul Kitchen

I've been a big fan of Korean food for a long time.

In college, my longest-standing roommate was half Korean. His mother took care of us. And by took care of us, I mean, she tried, in a very loving way to jam herself into every aspect of our lives, from our romantic interests to our daily intake of pickled cabbage. She was gentle about it. For instance, if she thought our vegetable intake was lacking, she'd get a faraway stare and say something like, "People should eat more salad." People meaning us.

It was certainly meant well and we took it as such. Most of her advice, suggested clothing purchases, etc., we simply blithely ignored. Probably to our detriment. But the one thing I didn't ever ignore and in fact welcomed, were the monthly deliveries of kimchi. By kimchi I mean pickled cabbage with chili. I could have eaten a gallon of the stuff. Probably still could, with tears running down my face.

So happy indeed was I when Seoul Kitchen opened near our home. It's your typical strip mall joint, not very large, sort of hard to find if you don't know it's there. The food is sensational and direct. As, in my opinion, it should be. This is straight up Korean soul-food (seoul food?). That means meat. That means rice. That means two or three simple flavors, strong and without embellishment.

That certainly doesn't mean you can't embellish. Every meal comes with an assortment of kimchi. From the aforementioned cabbage to daikon, to a small dish of bean sprouts. You're free to add what you like. Plates are generally large enough to share. You certainly won't go away hungry.

You may, however, have periods of hunger. The general problem with most family run restaurants is that, at the start of the business, they have no, and I mean no, experience running a restaurant. What does that mean for you dear diner? It means your meals are cooked one at a time. In the order they get to the kitchen. So your food arrives in the same way. It means your waitress isn't really a waitress. She's more of an expediter.

Seoul Kitchen suffers when there are more than two or three diners in the place. Which there usually are. Because the food is really just that good. So good, that I'd like to overlook the service completely. But they've been there for a while now and they should have worked some of this out for themselves.

The bottom line? By all means visit the Seoul Kitchen. On a weekday. At about three o'colck.

The fourteen dollar frozen pizza.

I've never been a fan of Domino's. They were (and unfortunately still are) a relic of the days when the options for delivery pizza were somewhat limited. Consider. During the eighties and some of the nineties, Pizza Hut didn't deliver. You were therefore at the mercies of Domino's or whatever local joint happened to be in the neighborhood. So it was often Domino's or nothing.

To top it off, the pizza simply blew. Just bad. And it was expensive. Still is frankly.

So it was something of a pleasant surprise to see the latest wave of Domino's commercials, you know the "we know we suck and so we changed" commercials? They promise a better crust, tasty sauce, "real" cheese! Whatever that last means. What were they using before?

But anyway, it looks good on the tv. And I'm always willing to give the product of honest introspection a chance, right? After all, that's why Ford gave us the Taurus, right? Right!

So the other day when we both arrived home from work and didn't want to cook, we took the plunge. Ordering online, we were able to track our pizza step by step, from creation to delivery. I imagine this innovation was in response to the legions of America's obese who used to just stare at the clock and fume.

So we eventually got our pizza. The deliveryman was a nice guy. Bonus. The pizza was still expensive, fifteen bucks for a small. But hey, that's okay with me if the pizza is good.

Well, it ain't. If anything, it's worse. Doughy, not much cheese, tasted stale. Passable. But not good. If anything, it tasted like frozen pizza. A fifteen dollar frozen pizza. Ouch.

So nice try Domino's. We appreciate the effort. But this is a world of 'do,' not 'try.' And your do is just not very good.

Closings-Signs of the times

Two restaurants of note went under last month, Auntie Dora's Soul Food and Mexa, a hip little taco joint.

Mexa had a good chance. We ate there twice. They had an unusual selection of tasty tacos, done well and pretty cheap. Their location, however, was the kiss of death. You know where Home Depot is on Oracle? Yep, that was the shopping center. Between being tucked into an alcove no one could see from the road and the brown shades they drew over the windows even when open, it was hard to figure out that the place existed. Now, alas, that problem is moot.

Auntie Dora's Soul Food was open for about ten minutes on Ft. Lowell. After it was shut down by the city for a lack of permitting, it never reopened. D'oh!

Now both these places suffered from the usul lack of restaurant expertise. Mexa was always full of the owner's pals hanging around and making it feel like a club you didn't belong to. Auntie Dora's? Really? You don't think you might need a permit to run a commercial gas grill and deep fryer?

But there's something else these two locations share. That is, it's been a month or two now and both remain empty. Heck, the building Auntie Dora's occupied was empty for a year or so before they moved in. Not only Mexa's space, but all the spaces in their building stand vacant.

So what's the point? Well, where is the support from the landlords? When Mexa started to stumble, did any one offer help with advertising, or a rent abatement? Judging by the pathetic signs they used to put out on Oracle, I'm guessing no. And Dora's? Heck, the place was a restaurant for years. Did the landlord ever take thirty minutes to sit down with these folks and ask them if they needed the benefit of a little expertise?

Now before you go all Libertarian on my ass, I'm not suggesting that landlords have a responsibility to run their tenant's business. What I am suggesting is that something has disappeared from Tucson business ethics. And that's the urge to act in one's own enlightened self-interest. And what's that a product of? Well, I have absolutely no proof of this, but I suspect its a function of absentee ownership.

If you're a local landlord, longevity of tenants is important to you. If you're a conglomerate like General Growth Properties, you probably don't really give a shit. And who pays for that? We do.

In a culinary market increasingly dominated by Chilis and Macaroni Grill, we all have a responsibility to our marketplace. You and me the eater have to support local restaurants of quality. We have to speak up when we see a good place screwing up. Local landlords need to foster the growth of their tenants that have a chance. Otherwise, the next time we go to eat, it'll be a choice between Applebees and Cocos. And I don't want to live in that world.

You have been warned.

El Guero Canelo

I love the food at this place. Breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's all, and I mean all, good.

Lately though, it's become obvious that the Oracle Road location has become little more than a shrine to the restaurant's owner.

First, we have the truck and taco stand outside, complete with informative signs, arranged like retired airplanes out at the Air Force Boneyard.

Inside, lately, the place is eerily devoid of conversation. Why? Well, first, like any modern church, there ain't anybody in there that doesn't work there. Second, the TVs are on at an absolutely absurd volume. And what are they currently playing? Scenes from the life of the prophet. Here's some footage of some guy at the grill, bashing away at a giant pile of meat. And then, for no particular reason, here's our founder, shouting furiously in Spanish.

I have no idea what he's talking about. Largely because of the echo in the place. I'm assuming its some sort of sermon involving the sacrament of grilled skirt steak. Or hot dogs maybe.

There are other signs of an ego completely out of control. The giant baby pictures. Et cetera. The most telling sign, however, might be the utter absence of customers at eight am on a Monday morning. Like church, most people ain't coming to pray unless they need something. And rare indeed, at least in this town, are the moments I need a Guero Canelo burrito when the Chapel of All Things BK's is one street over.

Take note my friend.

Sam Fox Pt. Un--Zin Burger

I like Zin Burger. And you should too.

Zin Burger is the perfect example of something Sam Fox got exactly right. And why? Because the concept is focused. Hip joint, simple menu.

Seared meat. Milkshakes. A salad or two. Beer and wine if you want it.

And what meat! Perfectly done, juicy patties, topped with premium ingredients.

So why isn't Zin Burger Fuddrucker's?

Great question. I mean, it's basically the same concept right? Right. Almost to a T. But what Zin Burger does is a bit of conceptual trickery. It gives you ingredients that sound premium, even if they're really not. Carmelized onions? Please. Sure they're good. Even at TGI Friday's.

But that's not all of it. Because what Sam's peddling here isn't just food. It's a concept. He makes you feel like you're part of something bigger than you are. That's why servers in ties bring you the food. It makes what is, in essence, a burger and fries, feel like something special. And that's not a bad thing. It works. Ambience and atmosphere are as much a part of dining as the food. That's why nothing, nothing, no matter what it is, tastes good in Furr's. Could be gold on a stick. But it's still going to taste like crap. Cause you're in Furr's and it's goddamned depressing. Or you're in Fuddruckers and you can't wait to get out of the place because it's too freaking fake-happy. Note to Fuddruckers: What's with the windows where you butcher the meat? You really think we want to see that? "That's right Jimmy. That's a real honest to goodness, tailend of an abbatoir In other words, this is a midpoint in a cow's life between playing in a field and becoming a good solid bowel movement." Sheesh.

But you could eat anything in Zin Burger, like a burger, fries and milkshake, and believe you're having an extraordinary meal. Which, at base, it isn't. It's just a very good meal. And I have those at Fuddruckers all the time. (Almost all the time.)

That being said, I love Zin Burger. It's where my wife and I go when we're having date night. It makes us feel hip and adult. (And geez, those banana milkshakes are good.) And that's a great thing. And that's what Sam Fox delivers when he's firing on all cylinders. And Zin Burger fies on all eight. Maybe nine.

On another note, what he also delivers, in all of his restaurants, is absolutely smothering service. There is a happy medium between abandonment and intrusiveness. Fox Restaurant Concepts needs to find the middle ground between the two. Jesus. I feel like I've gained a cousin, maybe two cousins I've never met when I go there. And they want money. So they keep complimenting my shoes and asking me if I've lost weight, even though they've never met me. Please. Take it down a couple of notches.

Sam Fox-Prince of the City or Public Enemy?

People in Tucson have strong feelings about Sam Fox. I've never met the guy, but I admire anybody who can get by with just six letters. Christ, that's a dynamic name. Say it with me.

Sam.

Fox.

Sam Fox.

Gives me goosebumps. I expect him to shoot rays of light from his eyes or be ten feet tall or something. Of course, he's nothing like that. Not really. What Sam is, is a restauranteur. And a very successful one.

From North to Sauce, to Montana Avenue, to Zin Burger, Sam has made an indelible impression on Tucson's dining scene. Some love his restaurants and appreciate the fact that a Fox Restaurant Concept is truly a total dining experience. For better (usually), for worse (occasionally). Some hate the restaurants and find them contrived and pretentious.

Me? I care about one thing really. Food.

Through the next few weeks, I'll be reviewing some of Sam's restaurants. Why?

Just because I love you. And also, because I think Sam has brought some truly wonderful eateries to the Old Pueblo. And because I appreciate anyone who at least tries to do something. That's not to say that I'm fond of all his restaurants. I'm certainly not. But I find the enterprise interesting.