Sushi's a sensation
Memories of Japan and its exquisite cuisine were still almost as fresh as the seafood at Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market.
It's enough to want to recreate them, to whatever degree possible in cattle land.
In the eternal mission to do just that for the masses, Koichi Nakamura and his crew arrived recently from Vancouver and set up Globefish three months ago in what used to be a Vietnamese eatery.
The place has got a deli feel, a streetside porch and touts Izakaya, or the act of drinking and eating — something the Japanese have down to an art. Suitably, there's a pretty good selection of sake and beer, including a trio of Japanese brews, though I noticed my Kirin was produced in L.A.
The difference in palate between Vancouver and Calgary?
Nakamura says Calgarians are still much more insistent on cooked meat than raw stuff and they don't care to tell the difference between coho and sockeye salmon. Go figure.
It was nonetheless attractively presented, the rolls stacked in tiers, sprinkled with black tobaki (flying fish eggs) and stabbed with pasta antennae.
These are rolls enveloping papaya, avocado and pureed scallops and crab — the rice partly sheathed in prawn.
The plate was drizzled with a white wine lemon sauce that provided an alternative to the customary soya-wasabi dip.
The barbecued squid was served in a soya sauce/sugar mix ($8.95) and cut into rings and tentacles bunches.
The meat was of a slightly chewy, but not rubbery texture and I particularly enjoyed the moderate crispiness of the tentacles.
Mizue couldn't resist the deluxe sushi combo ($18.95).
A colourful platter boasting California rolls, tuna rolls, sushi, and salmon arrived — all packing ingredients as fresh as you could expect in landlocked Calgary.
But it was the sea urchin sushi, with seafood the appearance of swirling peanut butter, that supplied the most pungent, sea-salty flavour.
The salmon sushi offered velvety meat little Hina wolfed down hungrily.
Mizue said the shrimp sushi was raw as it should be and, not boiled as it often is in Calgary.
Two variants of fish egg rolls rounded out the platter, one almost overflowing with bright orange salmon roe, the other tiny, blood red flying fish eggs.
The yakitori ($5.95) was a pair of good-sized chicken skewers — tender meat with a deep, barbecued flavour and slathered with a sweet sauce we quickly took a shine to.
It's impossible to replicate the Tokyo food experience in Calgary, but Globefish gives a good showing. |
By Bill Kaufmann 
