Advanced sushi

It was a life-changing moment: The sushi chef presented my friend and me with wine glasses filled partway with sake; tiny live crabs crawled up the sides. Back into the kitchen the glasses went, and soon the crabs returned as very crisp, tiny, perfectly crab-shaped snacks. Then came barely cooked Japanese lobster that had been chopped, drizzled with shoyu and returned to its shell; a small pile of tiny sweet-tasting shrimp; sashimi and sushi cut from pristine Spanish mackerel, squid and halibut fin, each carefully dressed with combinations of pickled radish, scallions, shiso leaf, yuzu, pickled radish, shoyu and sea salt.

By Carolynn Carreño

February 9, 2005