
Although these rolls look simple, the instructions that food blogger Von provides show how complex is the work of a sushi chef. These are made from tomato-flavored tuna.
Link -via Theresa Coleman
How
much would you pay for a piece of really fresh sushi? A sushi restaurant
has just bought what is the world's most expensive fish: $736,000 for
a bluefin tuna caught off the coast of Japan.
Link | More at MSNBC's PhotoBlog (Photo: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of Kiyomura Co., which operates the Sushi-Zanmai restaurant chain, said he wanted to give Japan a boost after last year's devastating tsunami.
The fish was divided into 10,000 pieces and sold off at ordinary prices, The Daily Telegraph reported."Japan has been through a lot the last year due to the disaster," a beaming Kimura told AP Television News. "Japan needs to hang in there. So I tried hard myself and ended up buying the most expensive one."

redditor NoKarmaForKindness crocheted a sushi roll that looks good enough to eat. It doesn’t actually smell like fish, but presumably it can be altered to do so.

When he noticed a foreign species of Asian shore crab in his favorite beach, Bun Lai of Miya's restaurant in New Haven, Connecticut, did what any sustainability-minded seafood chef would do: he made the invasive species into sushi!
The dish “kanibaba”—made with Asian shore and Dungeness crabs and spinach, rolled up tightly in potato skin, infused with Asian shore crab stock, and topped with toasted havarti cheese and lemon dill sauce—is now one of the most popular items at Lai’s restaurant, Miya’s, in downtown New Haven. “We run out of them at this point,” he says. “We go out and get thousands of them, and we sell thousands of them every week or so.” Kanibaba has become the signature dish of his “Invasive Species Menu,” a chapter in Miya’s 60-page menu that reads like a manifesto on sustainability, spirituality, and the creative process.
Zak Stone of GOOD magazine has the story: Link

No, this isn’t just a roll that a chef made to get into the record books. You can actually order this five kilogram roll at the Umewaka Restaurant in Anjo City, Japan. You’ll have to place your order two days in advance and pay ¥15,000 ($197 USD), but at least you’ll walk away full.
Link -via Bit Rebels | Photo: Oddity Central
Previously:
Ridiculously Large Sushi in Japan
World’s Largest Sushi Arrangement
Body Parts Sushi Gummy Candy – $3.95
Halloween is right around the corner. Are you looking for the perfect sweet treat to go with your zombie costume? You need the Body Parts Sushi Gummy Candy from the NeatoShop. This gruesomely delicious candy is shaped like sushi pieces with body parts and includes a handy dandy pair of chopsticks. This is what all the sophisticated zombies are eating.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastically strange Mints & Candies and Zombie fun!
A new sushi restaurant in the Aichi Prefecture of Japan has taken to making some outrageously massive rolls and nigiri. They also serve up some absolutely tiny pieces with each order to absolutely mess with the minds of anyone enjoying their treats. In the picture above, regular sushi has been included to give perspective to the other trays. You can watch a video of it at the link, but be warned the dialogue is in Japanese.
Link Via InventorSpot
And you thought carrot Darth Vader was impressive – check out the rest of Chef Okitsugu Kado’s creations. Using white radish, sweet potato, pumpkin and more, the sushi chef has created everything from an AT-AT Walker to Yoda. And here I was all pleased with myself for making Star Wars pancakes a few weeks ago…
Yummy Pillow Sushi – $17.95
Do you know someone who is crazy about sushi? Get them the Yummy Pillow Sushi from the NeatoShop. There is nothing sweeter than seeing someone you love all curled up with their favorite sushi roll. Your gift is sure to guarantee sweet dreams of the food they love so much.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Home & Garden items!
Peepshi is a snack that looks like sushi but tastes like Peeps, because it is made from Peeps and Rice Krispies. Peepshi is actually an art project, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. Learn how at Serious Eats. Link -via Holy Kaw!
Norway and China aren’t two countries you’d normally associate with sushi, but here we are. Behold the world’s largest sushi arrangement or moritsuke, created by Norwegian chefs in celebration of the ten millionth importation of Norwegian Salmon.
Now, I don’t know if all those sushi were consumed after being displayed for some time, but if they were, then I’d wager it also created the longest line for the bathrooms: Link
Sushi Stapler – $4.95
Are those staplers a little fishy? Why, yes! Now your favorite nigiri can also staple your paperwork. Behold the Sushi Stapler from the NeatoShop. They’re the perfect gifts for the sushi lovers in your life: Link | More Fun Back to School items | More Fun and Unusual Office Supplies
Sushi Erasers – $6.95
These sushi erasers sure look good enough to eat! We’ve got some new Iwako Japanese erasers over at the NeatoShop (the production quality is incredible – it’s like precision molding and engineering … for erasers!). Perfect for Back to School and collectors alike: Link
Japanese chef Shoichi Uchiyama has developed a line of sushi recipes that use insects, rather than fish, as the primary source of protein. He believes that carefully-selected insects are not only healthy and tasty, but can help feed a growing world population. From a 2008 article in The Daily Telegraph:
“In order to get 1 kg of beef, we have to raise cows on huge areas of land and give them many more kilos of fodder before they are ready to be slaughtered,” he said. “Insects eat the things that humans don’t and can be kept in much smaller spaces.
“Most importantly, insects are very nutritionally balanced, have little fat and are the perfect food source.”
Article Link and Photo Gallery via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Damn Cool Pics
Peepshi is sushi made from marshmallow Peeps! Yeah, it looks like sushi, but the ingredients are Peeps, Rice Krispies, and Fruit by the Foot, so you know it’s super sweet. Link -via Nag on the Lake
(image credit: Robyn Lee)
Endangered Species, that’s what’s for dinner!
A trendy Santa Monica Sushi Restaurant, funnily enough named “Hump”, was caught selling whale.
The Hump came under fire after allegations surfaced in Tuesday’s New York Times that it had served meat from an endangered sei whale, possibly straight from the trunk of a white Mercedes-Benz.
To provide evidence, federal agents and animal activists had cooperated in a video sting orchestrated by the associate producer of the Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove.” …
Teglas said they enlisted two female animal activists — both vegans — and used a tiny video camera to record them as they were served a $600 omakase, or chef’s choice, meal at the Hump. The two activists asked whether they could get whale meat, and a waitress then served eight pieces of what she called “whale,” according to an affidavit provided by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.
The activists bagged samples of the meat and slipped them into a purse. The samples were sent to Scott Baker, associate director of the highly regarded Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. Baker determined that the meat was sei whale.
Link (Photo: Al Seib / LA Times)
The game Sushi Cat doesn’t demand a lot of skill (at least until you reach the higher levels), but it’s so cute and funny you have to keep playing. How much sushi can one fat round cat eat? It’s basically like playing pinball with a balloon. You can leave and return to the same level. In between some levels, there’s a cartoon about a lovelorn cat. Link -via Metafilter
With an American and a Russian colleague, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi launched into space today in a Soyuz spacecraft, bringing with him the first sushi ever taken into orbit:
“We had training in Japan and I trained (my space colleagues) to be sushi lovers, so I am going to make a couple of flavors of sushi,” Noguchi told a press conference ahead of Monday’s launch of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
“…Some sashimi, and raw fish and sushi and I will bring that up to the space station to share with my crew.”
According to NASA, normal fare on the space station includes staples like mushroom soup, macaroni and cheese, or chicken and rice.
On the Russian side, there is tinned perch, curds with nuts and beetroot soup (borscht) sucked through a straw from a plastic bag.
If you were going up, what food would you take with you?
Link via Popular Science | Photo: NASA
Before you eat that oh-so-delicious piece of salmon sashimi, consider this: sushi (as well as undercooked fish) may be contributing to the growing problem of urban tapeworm …
Once the bane of rural Japanese villagers, a paper in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports on the spread of the the salmon tapeworm Diphyllobothrium nihonkaiense. The parasite, which can reach lengths of 39 feet (12 meters), has been steadily increasing its global distribution and prevalence – mostly among yuppies with a hankering for sashimi and ceviche.
One hospital in Japan reported 14 cases last year, up from 3 cases in 2000. And starting in 2006, the tapeworm has been popping up for the first time in North America and Europe. Meanwhile, farm-raised salmon from South America have been plagued by a closely related tapeworm that normally infects perch and other freshwater fish.
Tunas at the Tsukiji Fish Market. Photo: Fisherman (Wikipedia)
Psst! Love your tuna sashimi? Well, eat up because they may not be around much longer. The World Wildlife Fund has a dire report saying that unless current fishing practices are changed, tunas will be wiped out by 2012:
The population can only be saved by a complete halt to fishing in May and June, when the fish swim to the Mediterranean to spawn, the WWF says. The call comes as the two month tuna fishing season begins.
‘Bluefin tuna is collapsing as we speak and yet the fishery will kick off for business as usual,’ said Sergi Tudela, of WWF. ‘It is absurd and inexcusable to open a fishing season when stocks of the target species are collapsing.’
The effect of sending the camera around a Tokyo sushi restaurant via the conveyor, coupled with the music on this video, is quite a beautiful thing.
Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean were sitting in a Tokyo sushi bar when they had an idea to make this impromptu film:
"We were sitting in this sushi bar pondering how best to set up a camera to film things all by itself whilst we were in Tokyo.
Take our hands out of the equation… let the camera have its own journey.
What we loved about watching this film back was the space that the
camera was able to enter.. extremely personal and scrutinising but not
too lingering."
The music is titled "Lost in a Moment" by Shrift.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.
C’mon… like you’re getting any “work” done right now. Christmas Eve must be the most unproductive day on the job all year. Anyway, if you’re just counting down til you get to go home, kill a little time with this sushi game. You learn how to make different types of sushi, then you have to serve customers and order more ingredients when your stock runs low. It starts off slow, but it really picks up. Before you know it, an hour has gone by. Or maybe that’s just me.
Link: Sushi Go Round
Photo via Wikipedia user Nesnad.

