Koji Terano

Thank you very much Don and every one who joined this chat. It was first time to do chat on my life, I was little nerveous at beginning but it was very fun for me and I was waiting for more questions at the end. Basically I like to answer the custmer's questions so catch me at sushi bar any time and feel free to do it. I wish your wonderful culinary experience. Thanks again! Koji

Yes, We do most of the nights. It's all up to market variety so please give us a call to make sure before you come.

I recommend to have tasting menu($50), It come with five couses and dessert. That's easiest way to try our speciality.

Hi Ed The vegitable roll that we talked earlier in the chat has rice. At sushi place, You can order vegitable roll without rice and tell chefs your favorite ingredients. If you OK with rice paper, you're going to like Vietnamese summer roll (Rice paper wrapped vegitable, noodle and some meat with sweet sauce serve as appetizer.)

Hi wahooob. Chatting is super fun for me! Sorry,I'm not sure about sushi place in your area. But, I have favorite Japanese place in Rockville that is "TEMARI Cafe". (1043 rockville pike, rockville MD 301-340-7720) I usually have combination menu of lunch special there after I picked Japanese magazines up at book store on upstairs. That's one of best lunch value for me. Combination lunch come with couple kind of appetizer, miso soup, bowl of rice, pickled vegtable and sashimi plus something else as two main course. (I believe we have 4 or 5 choices) This place reminds me bistro in Japan. They have variety of menu so I hope you enjoy non sushi Japanese meal at TEMARI Cafe. Basically eel sauce is reduction of soy sauce, sugar, sake and chunks of eel or bones. There are so many recipes, some people use brown sugar, malt jelly, honey, couple different kind of soy sauce and starch for their taste. I tell you simple recipe here. 600cc soy sauce, 1/2lbs sugar, 5tbs sake and 1/4lbs broiled eel meat (optional) Mix soy, sugar and sake in a pot. Heat them up, add eel after sugar melt and bring to boil then make fire below medium to simmer until the liquid become thick enough to cover the surface of spoon. Strain sauce and chill. It sounds easy, but I think it takes more than hour. (I usually prepair gallon of sauce so I'm not sure how long it takes to complete.) You need to stair sauce often and don't burn it. The other way to make your own sauce is buying a bottle of eel sauce at store and make it to your favorite taste. It's much easier and save lot of time. Enjoy your creation!!

Hi Pete. I live in suburb, too so sometimes I don't want to pass Key bridge on my day off. My best favorite Japanese place is "Blue Ocean." http://www.blueocean-sushi.com I usually order "TEI-SHOKU" which is set menu, we have choice of entree (my personal favorite is broiled miso marinated cod fish and saut'ed ginger pork), bowl of rice, miso soup, couple kind of small appetizer and sashimi. It's very fair price, so I go there often. They also have lot of daily special small dishi that written in Japanese on white board, but don't worry, chefs and server will help you. They have good sushi, too.

Hi Goldenticket. Thank you for your question. You got it. Milder fish first, stronger one later. At sushi bar, some customer order chef's pick piece by piece. I serve plain white fish first, then octpus, clams and scallop, another white fish with topping, lean tuna or bonito, sea urchin or salmon roe, yellowtail family, buttery fatty tuna, eel or some rolls and sweet egg as dessert to finish. In this case I make rolls at the end, because some rolls has more number of ingredients and taste more complexity than simple piece of nigiri. This is my suggestion for elegant stream.

Some sushi has delicate flavor,and most of the other dishes are over power. Here is my current order when we serve 5~6 course menu, first ball is small portion of hot appetizer for snack then sashimi style cold appetizer with vinaigrette as salad, clear broth soup to refresh mouth, sushi plate, main course and dessert. I like to make a chain of hot and cold so far, and refresh mouth before having delicate flavor of sushi. Eating slice of gari (pickled ginger) and a drop of water will be good refreshment, too.

I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed my favorite piece! I love natto (fremented soy beans) a lot. I think natto is on of the highest nutrition food! Natto is sold in frozen here so I defrost in fridge. (You can use microwave 20 seconds to defrost but natto become less sticky.) Mix up natto very well to make it sticky, add soy sauce and little bit sweet sake (If you like.) up to taste, then I chop small amount of kimuchee (Korean spicy pickled nappa cabbage) and mix into natto, put mixture over tho bowl of steamed rice. Yam! or add chunks of fresh tuna into sauce added natto to make sushi hand roll is good, too. There are so many different way to prepare sushi, I like sushi that has good balance of fish and rice amount, but on the other side some people focus on value of big piece of rice and fish, it depends on customer's requirement. I think it's right way to do, too so I don't deny it. We stopped serving sushi in whole foods stores, but most of Japanese restaurant offer carry out even one order of cucumber roll. I order carry out to any kinds of restaurant on my day off. The number of Japanese restaurant keep increasing here, It's good! Customer has lot of choice and All the restaurants have to brush up quality to survive.

Thank you very much, I'm happy to do chat! I usually use fingers to eat sushi with wet towel otherwise chop stick. There are few things that I want everyboady to know, Rubbing chop sticks is not nice manner, I've never seen people rubbing chop stick at restaurant except noodle stand and cheap tavern in my country. Most of the tip of chop stick is polished and ready to use, Pointing by chop stick is rude too. I don't see people passing the food chop stick to chop stick each other, that's how we correct bones at crematory of funeral ceremony in Japan. When I have sushi, I dip fish side into the soy sauce (except piece with sea urchin and fish roe) or ask chef to brush the sauce on to enjoy delicate fish flavor. When I need extra spicy, I put pinch of wasabi on fish side or ask chef to add more wasabi for next course. It's OK for me people love to have sushi dipped with mixture of soy and wasabi, that's my wife's custom too. Everyboady enjoy sushi in their style, that's great! I eat piece of sushi in one bite especially nigiri. I think piece of nigiri is not too big for one bite, and we can enjoy the balance of right amount rice and fish in a mouth, and I always ask chef for smaller rice for nigiri because I want fish and rice to vanish in same time from my mouth. So far we have few kinds of new vegitable roll created by my sushi chefs. We can invent new roll any time and your request wellcom then put your name on it!

Hi Catincal. My favorite? For nigiri, I like lightly boiled octpus with nitsume (eel sauce), meat and scallop of orange clam, Japanese cockle clam with nitsume, half cooked CA sea urchin, American sturgeon caviar with quail egg, engawa (part of flounder, meat above the fin bones) with fish liver or sea urchin, any kind of scallop with caviar, lightly grilled giant clam and everything in fish show case! I'm crazy for the meat with texture (someboady say chewy) like a octpus and clams,especially each type of clams have nice flavor plus low calorie and high in nutrition. I love them. For rolls, my best favorite is chopped fatty tuna with pickled radish and shiso, crispy fried marinated chicken roll, kanpyo (cooked dried squash) with avocado and tomate. Some of these sushi are "off menu" and I have a lot of customer who request their own creation roll, I enjoy them a lot!

Hi Tweaked. So far I have 5 venders for seafood and I'm planning to open another account with new company. When I start business, I go to wear house to see their jobs and try some samples to check quality and notify about returning and exchanging for disappinted stuff.(This is most important part.) I appreciate, the raw seafood quality is much better than before for restaurant. I used to order extra 2pc fish on each kind, then I pick best one and return all the rest because quality was not same all the time but They stopped business with us after a while. When I choose fish, I check about damage outside, smell, color of gills and eyes, and how firm the meat is. The best way to keep whole fish in fresh is "IKE-JIME", get live fish then cut off back bone right behind a head and next to tail, insert a fine long wire into the hole that right under the back bone from tail to head to stop living activity completely, then it's possible to make rigormortis delay for keep meat in fresh extra 1~2days. The meat start to be aged after rigormortis untill. Also all the internal organs and gills must be removed for better result. This method works great with fish 2~3lbs and up like a flounder, jack fish and much more. It's sort of medically thing.(I'm sorry if you feel bad.)

Thank you for your question. Making a thin long single sheet of vegetable (mostly made by daikon radish or cucumber) is least skill requiered to cooks in Japanese cuisine, but honestly some people are not good at making it in my team. If you order those kind of roll in rush hour, I say give me a time. But we're glad to hear the request from customer even in busy time, so feel free to talk to chefs for request when you seat at sushi bar in any restaurant. Nomally it takes 5 to 10 minutes to serve your favorite roll without rush hour.

Hi Don. Thank you very much for exciting opportunity! I'm ready for it with huge dictionary, and any questions are welcome. I think all sushi restaurants have different rice recipe without chain, also there are so many kinds of rice available in market. In my case, I trid 3~4 brands of top of the line to pick current one. I like to prepare sushi rice little harder, less sugar (too much sugar kills original sweetness of rice) and keep them warm then I can make contrast of texture, temperature and taste between rice and fish for piece of nigiri. High quality products make huge difference from least expensive stuff what ever rice, vinegar, seaweed and everything. PS. Some people talking about "Why sushi restaurant use same sushi rice for all kind of fish?" It means each type of fish must have best mariage with different taste of rice. It will be fun to figure out, but long way.