- Going from being a restaurant that just opened
to getting locked down, not being fully ready to do takeout,
it really messed with us a lot.
At that time when the shutdown happened,
the restaurant itself was doing so well.
So we sold out for about a whole month straight
when we first opened.
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You got the good stuff?
I knew we were sacrificing quite a bit
just by offering it to-go, but given the situation
where that was the only way people were able to get sushi,
I think people were a little bit more forgiving.
But it never occurred to us
that we had to speed up that process quicker
because on any given night,
we would do about 200 boxes to 300 boxes a night.
So here we have a bluefin from Baja.
So this is actually the backside loin.
So this is mostly akami.
This is the tail part. This is the head part.
My favorite part about butchering tuna
is that I really get to know the anatomy.
So usually in the backside,
you can only get two cuts mostly.
The lean part, which is the top,
you see it's lean everywhere.
It's mostly red.
And then the bottom half is mostly chu.
If you look at the color here,
see how starts getting fatty?
So it's redder here.
Then it gets a little bit more pink.
That's considered chutoro, medium fatty.
Probably chutoro's my favorite
just because it's a medium
between the really fatty and the lean.
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This is ootoro.
This is the belly part of that bluefin tuna.
Obviously, you can see all the fat and the marbling.
You cannot go to any omakase restaurant
and not have tuna.
So one of the most important things besides knives
is probably paper towels at a sushi restaurant.
Paper's to wrap the tuna
to capture all the excess moisture.
During the pandemic, obviously,
a lot of vendors closed down in the city,
and then we were having issues getting
a steady supply of fish.
And I said, "Well, maybe we can start looking
"to sourcing our own stuff."
It was so hard to get tuna, uni,
and then once we establish our Japanese line,
it was way easier to keep going.
Bluefin akami, topped off with shiitake
and a roasted almond in the rice.
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When the pandemic happened very early on,
nobody really wanted to come back,
and it was very understandable.
And that's where we got the idea
about a sushi robot in-house,
but it was a really useful tool, and it still is.
We used to do about 250 meals a day.
With the machine, it was a breeze.
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After it rolls out,
basically, you just put the sheet here.
Put it down.
And voila.
So you can see it's super consistent.
The sushi robot is a tool,
and it's only as good as the person using it.
It worked really well,
and it helped us a lot in some of the locations.
I don't think the robot will ever replace anybody.
This is kamasu,, Japanese barracuda.
We char it, and then the fattiness that comes off it,
it's just overall a really good fish.
Usually kamasu, everybody sears it or broils it,
or what they say, they call it "aburi".
At that point, I realized oh wow,
we need something with a little bit of acid,
also that same char flavor to accentuate even more.
So I felt like doing something like a tomatillo salsa
would have been a fitting.
So Chef Andrea is right now gonna char
some tomatillos and shallots.
I always felt like this was like
I guess a Japanese version of a molcajete. (laughs)
I think every culture has something like this.
I started working sushi when I was 19.
I'm 37 years old.
So my background is I'm Mexican-American.
People ask me, do I use elements
of Mexican cuisine on my sushi.
To be honest, there's so many flavors
that translate so well,
and I was like, "I'm just gonna use something,
"one of my own flavors."
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When we first started our to-go model,
my partner wanted to do nigiri,
and I said, "Okay."
I was okay with the nigiri,
but then he wanted to do toppings,
what we were doing at the restaurant.
I was very opposed to doing toppings
just because I felt like they were gonna fall,
and I felt like already,
the nigiri was not gonna travel well.
It was a bit excessive, but (chuckles),
he said, "Well maybe we even have a restaurant afterwards."
I guess I was wrong because people were buying it.
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So this is a kamasu, Japanese barracuda
with roasted tomatillos and a little bit of yuzu kosho,
The amount of fish we get for the whole group
is quite a bit.
Just for instance, aji.
Aji is a Japanese horse mackerel.
Just per location, we probably get like 30 pieces
per location on a weekly basis, 120 pieces a week.
Some people cure it.
Some people salt it.
Some people do a vinegar bath, a quick one, not too much.
I personally don't do that to aji
just because I actually like just the raw, fresh taste.
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It's like meditation almost.
If you're having a bad day, you just come here.
You forget everything else.
You just focus what's in front of you.
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Japanese horse mackerel, aji,
topped with herbs and a little bit of miso sauce.
I never imagined that I would be managing this many people
in this short of a time.
I know we're closed inside,
but we should always maintain a standard.
Let's get rid of the family meal.
Let's clean up a little bit more.
To-go has increased slightly, so yeah.
So be aware of that.
To-go might be a big factor today, guys, okay?
All right, guys, let's have a good service.
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When we first started our to-go model,
we ordered about 10,000 units in to-go containers.
That really didn't last us anything.
We adjusted again.
The next quarter was 40,000.
We haven't been able to keep up with our own demand
in terms of boxes.
It's a treat.
We focus a lot on the packaging.
It's a lot of conversation that we had
that our packaging had to be really well done,
and so far, I think we've done well.
There's a certain way we lay the sushi here.
We actually lay 'em closely,
so when they ship, they don't move around too much.
And we actually have dividers of bamboo to help
with the division of some of the stuff that's in here.
I don't know what's gonna happen to the to-go model
after the pandemic is over.
So these are questions they were asking,
the team is asking itself.
You know, how do we transition with these times
to being just an omakase restaurant
as we intended to be, or do we still have to keep evolving
with the times?
This is Amy.
We just got an order for uni,
and she's currently packing it for us.
- So this a 200-gram tray of Hokkaido uni.
We actually don't sell the Hokkaido uni right now
on our menu.
We only have Santa Barbara and Maine,
but because we don't have both of them,
we decided to ask the guests
if they wanted to order Hokkaido,
which is a little more expensive
because it's a higher quality.
- As regards to uni,
we get 40 trays of Santa Barbara, 40 trays of Maine,
about 20 trays of Japanese uni.
I think people always joked around before the pandemic.
When I had a guest in front of me,
"Oh, Chef, can I get a tray of uni from here?"
And I usually just like giggle it off or something.
Now that the pandemic happened,
we're kind of well, let's put it on the to-go platforms.
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When we locked down, I was, to be honest,
I was very, very crushed.
It was more of a spirit thing.
After so much hardship just in general,
even in my own personal life,
I'd never felt so crushed in my life.
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This restaurant has evolved and grown during the pandemic.
I'll take the hardship of the growth any day
before I go back to locking up.
My hopes for 2021 is to still be here.
That's all.
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