By Yasu on February 22, 2009 7:32 PM

Wasabi, a hot green paste made from the roots of a Japanese herb, has a couple of functions.

1. Fresh, non-powder wasabi is anti bacterial. It helps maintaining the freshness of the raw fish.
2. It has nice and light fragrance, which enhances the taste of the fish.
   

In Chaya, we use the real fresh wasabi, which tastes much different from powder wasabi, or prepared wasabi in tube.

Post-gazette describes our fresh wasabi as follows:

The texture of wasabi, when it's fresh, is less like Play-Doh, more like food. Organic, I guess you could call it. And while the paste that's made from the powdered wasabi is content to merely set your sinuses on fire, fresh wasabi makes its presence known in a subtle, more flavorful fashion -- clearly worth the extra effort they've invested in it.

To enjoy the true taste of sushi and sashimi, it is recommended not to dissolve Wasabi into the soy source. Otherwise, it would mute the flavor. If you are not good at wasabi, just tell us so that we can make wasabi-free sushi.

By Yasu on February 22, 2009 5:38 PM

Sushi can be categorized into nigiri (fish-on-top of rice), maki zushi (rolls). Some rolls can further categorized into te-maki (hand rolls) and gunkan maki (seaweed wrapped around rice and fish), typically seen with fish eggs and sea urchi.

Sushi originated as portable meal for the working class people in Japan. It has many styles, all different across Japan. The style that we are familiar with is the Edo style. Edo is the old name for Tokyo, which had abundant fish supply from Tokyo Bay. The Edo style is known for its raw fish material, and the nigiri zushi.