I’ve been on a sushi kick lately. Fresh, tender seafood that melts in your mouth, Asian flavors that meld together, artfully prepared all make for a perfect meal. One that I could have nearly every night of the week. Still, there are some people who feel that sushi and raw fish are not for them. Heck, they won’t even glance at a menu to see the creative menu items. Oh, are they missing out?! Now, sushi has taken a modern twist and there’s something for everyone — from your BBQ fanatics to the raw foodists — you are all now covered. With this, we take you on a tour of some of the country’s more unusual choices.
Photo by Brett Hufziger
We start off our tour of exotic sushi rolls with a stop at a local South Florida BBQ establishment — Smoke’t Southern Kitchen & Tap in Coral Gables for their BBQ Pork Roll. Served with Smoke’t Blazin Hot Sauce, this roll of pulled BBQ pork, cole slaw and sticky rice offers the perfect crunch to each mouthful.
Smoke’t Southern Kitchen & Tap is located at 1450 S Dixie Highway, Coral Gables.
We continue our tour of exotic sushi rolls with a visit to Haru for the Red Hot Mama Roll ($15) where we get our fill of Louisiana flavors. This specialty roll available at all of the Haru locations (in New York, Philadelphia and Boston) combines crawfish, mango and cilantro. It is then topped with yuzu tobiko and a Japanese remoulade.
Sushi takes many shapes and sizes and at Kerry Simon’s L.A. Market, located at the J.W. Marriott Los Angeles, it even comes as a pizza. This fresh take combines Angeleno’s long obsession with sushi with the latest pizza craze and brings you one of the most popular menu items at LA Market — the Sushi Pizza.
LA Market is located at the JW Marriott Los Angeles, 900 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA. (213) 765-8930
It’s time to play with fire at The Colony at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki where a quick flick of a blow torch comes into play with this innovative line of sushi dishes. Choose between the Miso Glazed Maguro with Kaiware (sprouted daikon radish seeds) and sesame or the Cream Cheese Flamed Smoked Salmon with lavendar onion and lemon. Add in a brief stint with the blowtorch and you’ll have a nice, charred finish to the dish. Are you feeling brave? Chef says that this flavor enhancement can also be done at home with a small hand-held blowtorch and a tangy miso sauce of garlic, white miso and mayo.
The Hyatt Regency Waikiki is located at 2424 Kalakaua Avenue, Honolulu, HI. 808 923 1234
Photo by Hannah Kaminsky
In Connecticut, sushi takes an even healthier twist at Health in a Hurry and becomes vegan-friendly. For this Raw Vegan Sushi Roll ($7.95), the rice is substituted with a vegan ‘rice’ made with nut pate, almonds, ginger, tamari, scallions and miso that have been blended together to form a thick pate resembling rice and having a sushi flavor. These rolls are then filled with fresh vegetables like avocado, carrots, beets, red peppers, celery and sprouts. This is served with tamari dipping sauce.
Health in a Hurry is located at 1891 Post Road, Fairfield, CT (203) 254-5777
A meal is not complete without dessert and for that we present you with Fruishi ($2.50 for the first roll, $1.50 for additional) at Orange in Chicago. This twist on your typical roll features fresh fruit for a sweet, light ending to your meal. Orange has multiple locations in the Chicago area.
Where do you like to go for sushi? Do you enjoy standard rolls or would you try something a little out of the norm?
For a luscious ending to your day, it’s time to curl up on your couch with a bowl of frozen deliciousness. You’ve had so many products made with artificial ingredients, that you’ve forgotten wbat your favorite frozen treats are really supposed to taste like until you discover Talenti Gelato. This Texas-based company makes everything from scratch, using only the finest ingredients available. From the freshly pasteurized milk to fresh whole Tahitian vanilla beans straight from to New Guinea to real chocolate imported from Belgium, you can expect nothing less than the best — and this comes to play when you are indulging in this creamy treat spoonful by spoonful.
Talenti Gelato is available in many flavors, both Gelato and Sorbetto. Each individual flavor is sold in a sleek pint-size, reusable container. The gelato was easy to scoop out as soon as it came out of the freezer, and held the desired consistency that one would hope for. The flavors were clean and fresh — and you knew you were eating something that was good for you. While we quickly ate up the Double Dark Chocolate dotted with pieces of Belgian Chocolate and the Sicilian Pistachio blended with roasted pistachios and pistachio butter, our favorite was the Mediterranean Mint. Forget ever going back to your childhood flavor of Mint Chocolate Chip. Mediterranean Mint is made with fresh mint leaves, giving it a distinct, clean flavor. It reminded us that this green scoop we grew up with was actually supposed to taste like — um, real mint — something you often forget about. Specks of bittersweet chocolate pieces added a nice balance to every spoonful.
Talenti also offers a selection of exotic Sorbetto flavors, but we’ll stick with the gelato. All are available at select Albertson’s, Publix, Whole Food and Target locations or can be ordered online. Prices vary from location to location, but usually cost between $4.99 – $5.99 for a pint.
Do you know where the food that you eat comes from? Is it produced responsibly and sustainably? and more importantly — does it taste good? The San Francisco-based Seedling Projects is looking for food producers to enter their Good Food Awards — an annual award recognizing those food products that taste good and are responsibly produced.
How to Enter:
From now until 9/15/10, food producers can submit their products for a blind tasting in one of seven categories: cheese, preserves, chocolate, coffee, charcuterie, pickles and beer. A $10 processing fee applies. Each product will be judged by an impressive tasting panel including Ruth Reichl and over 80 chefs, food writers and food producers. Three finalists will be awarded with 1 overall winner from each region of the US for each category. Because this is to find products that are produced responsibly, the products entered must be produced in such a way. Once entry is confirmed, producers will need to submit samples of their products for tasting.
Winners will be announced on January 14, 2011 at an event hosted by Alice Waters at the Ferry Building in San Francisco and the following day, all winning products will be showcased at a show for the public.
For more information, visit Good Food Awards online.
Kick off your summer by firing up that grill. A juicy burger, barbecue chicken or even Italian sausage — you may have these mastered, but what about grilling that perfect piece of fish? Do you know what it takes? Seasons 52, the fresh grill and wine bar that focuses on using seasonal ingredients has a few pointers that will have you grilling your favorite piece of seafood in no time.
Serves 4
Note: Best fish for grilling: salmon, mahi mahi, swordfish, tuna and sea scallops.
Ingredients:
4 ea 6 oz filets of fresh fish
1 ea Lemon, zested, cut in ½
2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp Soy sauce
2 tsp Sea salt or Kosher salt
1 tsp Cajun seasoning, if desired
½ tsp Black pepper
Spritz bottle with oil
Procedure:
- Select fresh fish filets and place out on a flat dish or tray.
- Zest one lemon and cut lemon in half. Reserve cut lemons for later.
- Rub the fish with lemon zest, add olive oil and soy sauce.
- Sprinkle with black pepper and Cajun seasoning. Coat evenly and reserve refrigerated until dinner time.
- Fire up the grill; seasons fish with the salt. Ensure you have a hot coal fire. Ensure grill grates are hot, clean, and rubbed with oil.
- Lay fish filets on the grill and cook approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
- Give fish a quarter turn with a spatula and cook another 1 to 2 minutes. The direct flame will produce an off-flavor of carbon.
- After 3 to 4 minutes on one side, carefully flip fish over. It should be 50% cooked with nice caramelization.
- Cook fish 1 to 2 minutes and give another quarter turn.
- While you are grilling the fish, grill lemon halves.
- When fish is done cooking, squeeze a touch of the lemon on it and move to a serving platter.
- Garnish with the lemon and enjoy immediately.