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    Albuquerque’s best sushi is in Rio Rancho.


    2010 - 06.25

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    Posted in food, opinion | No Comments »

    I recently expressed frustration with poor-quality sushi joints which have infested Albuquerque.  My favorite sushi place in town has been Shogun on Central, but I don’t love it, it was just the best I’d found.

    On a recent date night, Lisa and I decided to have sushi, and I literally Googled “best sushi in Albuquerque.”  All the usual spots were there, like I Love Sushi, Sushi King, or Azuma.  By the way, those are not the best in Albuquerque.  I saw another one nestled in there that I had never heard of: Noda’s.  Billed as “authentic Japanese cuisine,” and up on Southern in Rio Rancho, Urban Spoon and Yelp! are filled with rave reviews, some dating back 10 years.

    We went.  Noda’s quickly became our favorite sushi restaurant yet.  You see, sushi isn’t a kitch thing there, it’s just part of the menu and has been for over a decade.  It’s not a sushi restaurant, it’s a Japanese restaurant.  The sushi was unique and incredibly tasty – there was no Gryffindor Roll, thank goodness.  There was a very limited amount of cream cheese in the rolls, too (I recall seeing only 1 that had it) and almost no tempura-based rolls.

    A unique thing they do was make the sushi rolls, then pile some more fish on the tops.  I tried the “green mustard roll,” and the salmon roll (pictured below) and they had a lot more flavor than I’m used to in sushi.  They were filling without being heavy.

    The rolls were well-built and the service was pleasant.  The fish tasted amazing and they used some wonderful ingredients in the rolls like the sprouts in that salmon roll.  So my current favorite sushi place in Albuquerque?  Noda’s.  Without a doubt.

    HFCS and balance, or, how to lose 50 pounds in 2 years


    2010 - 06.09

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    Posted in drink, food, opinion | No Comments »

    I am not a doctor or scientist, nor do I report to be – I’m simply recording my own personal experience with and without HFCS.  Any info I’ve put here is either from documentaries I’ve seen or my own experiences.

    In January of 2008, I saw a 5-minute Youtube video about high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Since I can’t find the video now, I’ll summarize: it basically covered the fact that it’s sticky, chemical, unnatural, and may have some serious effects on your “normal” digestive system.  Diabetes was mentioned, too.

    The video really bothered me.  We committed as a family to stop eating any foods or drinking drinks with HFCS.  We were (and still are) very stringent about it.  If I discover anything had HFCS, I would not eat or drink it.  I discovered the “usual culprits” at grocery stores and restaurants: sauces, dressings, breads, pre-mixed cocktail mixers, and ice creams – these were more likely to have HFCS.  I avoided the items I suspected might contain it.  I didn’t eat less food or change my diet any other way, yet.

    By that summer of 2008, I had lost 40 pounds and dropped 5 inches off my waist – then my wife and I saw King Corn on PBS.  It covered HFCS and the role corn plays in our food supply, especially as it relates to beef.  You see, cows like to eat grass, but almost all cows in the US are fed corn, which fattens them quickly, but they cannot digest it, so antibiotics must be introduced to keep them healthy.  The guys in King Corn say that if you were born after 1970, it’s likely that you have never even eaten grass-fed beef (they address why this is better beef than corn-fed is, too). I read Fast Food Nation around this time also.  We stopped eating beef and pork.

    Also around this time I decided to look at balance in my day.  If I had toast for breakfast, I tried not to have a sandwich for lunch or rolls with dinner.  That’s a lot of bread.  I realize that there’s a food pyramid that says to eat a lot of bread/grains, but I see it as a balance thing.

    In the 2 years since I lost my initial 40 pounds, I’ve lost another 10, and another inch or so off my waist.  In that time as well, Jason’s Deli has removed HFCS from all foods and drinks (except brand-name sodas) in their restaurants, and many others have done so as well, like Pepsi and Mountain Dew Throwback, Jones Soda, Snapple, Heritage Dr. Pepper, Hunt’s Ketchup.  Oh, all of this happened after the Corn Refiners Association has launched an ad campaign defending their gooey bastard son.  Heh.

    Link: Ban HFCS Page on Facebook

    How Not to Make Sushi


    2010 - 04.23

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    Posted in food | 5 Comments »

    Sushi is a craze. Twenty years ago, it was hard to find and soccer moms didn’t regularly haunt their favorite spots. It was a modern treat, one for big city yuppies who had money to burn on fancy raw fish.

    In the last few decades, things have changed for the worse.  Maybe it was Molly Ringwald chomping the stuff in The Breakfast Club, maybe the word dribbled down to us common folk some other way, but now it’s 2010.  In Albuquerque, there are probably at least 40 restaurants out there serving sushi.  It’s in downtown, sure, but it’s also in the suburbs.  That’s where the problem really takes root.

    You see, sushi is no longer a delicacy, no longer unique, and no longer high-quality.  These days it’s often made by the same class of chefs you can find at Denny’s, which is a problem because sushi was made famous for the skilled chefs who made it, Japanese men who trained for years and strove for absolute perfection.  Legend has it women could not be sushi chefs because of their naturally higher hand temperature.  Outside of the traditions, today’s subushi (suburb-sushi) costs relatively the same as a a good plate of sushi elsewhere.

    Which brings me to tonight’s travesty.  There are many ways to create a bad sushi experience, I observed these tonight:

    • make the rolls too big so that when picked up with chopsticks, they crumble
    • make the rolls so sloppy so that the nori comes detached from itself (see the photo)
    • use less raw fish in the rolls, and more fried/tempura ingredients
    • go buck-wild with the spicy mayo, squirting big globs all over the rolls
    • make a goofy gimmick like a “Gryffindor Roll” (actually saw this on the menu)
    • offer terrible service on top of the less-than-stellar food experience

    Rumor has it, there are gems out there, sushi joints with chefs who’ve trained for decades to make stellar raw fish without gimmicks and with great flavor.  The search continues.