Off the downtown mall, buried deep inside the Cafe Cubano promenade we find an unassuming Japanese “sushi, seafood and steak” restaurant, Miyako. While it doesn’t make you feel like a rock star the same way Ten does, Miyako makes you feel at home, cozied up in front of the sushi chef that has a wonderful personality.
I asked the sushi chef if they had o-toro (fatty tuna belly). It wasn’t listed on the menu and I didn’t see it in front of me, so I hoped there was a secret stash somewhere in the back. There wasn’t. The sushi chef goes on to talk about the fish purchasing process and how this isn’t the best time to find good quality o-toro, and if they don’t have the best they don’t buy it. Instead he suggested I try the white tuna. According to Wikipedia, and a self-proclaimed Sushi Fanatic, I either ate albacore tuna, or had escolar (which isn’t actually tuna). Now I really want to find out…
Served nigiri style with a dab of miso sauce and paper thin scallion on top, our mouth, stomach and heart were on cloud 9. So skip the Ten and head down to Miyako, and if you please, ask for some detail on what the white tuna really is.
[pic from VirtualErn on flickr]
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Escolar? May I suggest wearing a diaper for 24 hours or so?
i eat escobar tuna which is super white and powdery
In places like Hawaii, where it’s a by-catch of long-line tuna fishing, escolar is known colloquially as the Ex-Lax fish, thanks to its high content of indigestible wax esters (remember olestra?)
i dont remember having a war with the toilet, so perhaps it was indeed albacore TUNA.
Miyako uses the Miso sauce on the Escolar (Walu). That’s probably what it was.
If you liked it, you should also try the Kampachi; they have it at ten and at Bang (although Bang’s is cooked). It’s not quite as buttery and tender, but it’s really good
hmm I am 100% certain it is listed on the chalkboard, and sold as white tuna. oh all this sushi confusion is driving me mad. just go and have for lunch and let us know if you are tied to the lou for the rest of the afternoon.
White Tuna is people!
Man, why has it alway gots to be about the WHITE tuna, my brotha?
Nigiri, please.
@6: Talking to Mabu (he’s almost always manning the sushi bar) last time I was there, he said that white tuna is the same fish Ten calls Walu or Escolar.
Has anyone tried Bang’s new menu? It’s worth the visit
I like the new menu at Bang and even the new menu which makes it more like Mas or a sushi bar.
Sliders are also good.
Wow – that was confusing- I like the new menu (the new food) and the new (paper) menu which makes it easier to order.
Chef/Owners Tim & Vincent are manning the stoves @ Bang again! Don’t miss out, they really know how to slang the delicious food!
@13 just on tues & wed though, right?
Just as an aside, tuna fisheries in the Mediterranean have collapsed. Entire stock of all harvestable species of fish (tuna, salmon ,tilapia, seabass, rock fish, grouper, shrimp, etc) at the current rates at which we as a world fish are predicted to be in total collapse by 2048. Only 39 years left so gobble while you can because before collapse comes sky high prices.
I’m confused. Is this tuna or is this chicken? It says chicken…
impose quotas on fishing and enforce it with ridiculous fines and public ridicule. i will gladly eat less fish if it means there will actually be fish for the grand kids.
@15, 17 – Fines are fine, let’s pile them on. An interesting story has come out of the eastern Mediterranean, though. When the Aswan High dam was up in Egypt in 1966(?), it essentially cut off the vast majority of the Nile water that drained into the Med., as well as the nitrogen. The result was that there was a complete collapse of fisheries in that part of the Mediterranean. But, in all of the exposed land downstream, the post-dam increase in population and resulting agriculture now provides nitrogen to the Med. in levels comparable to pre-dam conditions. The result is a fishery that has recovered to near pre-dam conditions due to human meddling. Certainly not a perfect case of ecological restoration, but in this case, it’ll do.
Cool huh? Makes you question our western preconceptions regarding what flows downstream.
Dr. Tuff out.
@18 the hard thing is that quotas and fines would have worked if imposed earlier but now hands off entire stocks is what is called for. And that is not going to happen.
Google images of catcher/processer boats then look for photos of bycatch.
The whole thing is a complete cluster fuck. Nobody wants to stop eating fish and that is unfortunately what would need to happen. And before anyone suggests farmed fish, dont because in addition to the filler feed those animals get (CORN!) their protein comes from sources such as menhaden, anchovies and sardines creating a much larger market for those species and causing us to target fish further down the trophic levels. Those species are included in the 2048 prospective outlook as well and also over exploited.
@18 What fisheries were affected by the dam and what recovered? In many cases introduced species that are less valuable locally and ecologically but more valuable commercially and internationally will fill niches left vacant due to pollution. That is not really restoration.
i bow down to thee Rose, your scientific insight on pertinent issues contrasts the tongue in cheek commentary this site attracts…and you too Dr. Tuff
Sorry, I just thought you might find it to be worthwhile info as a seafood consumer.
It’s interesting to me how many thoughtful, well educated people will limit meat in their diets due to health, environmental or ethical reasons but never investigate where their seafood comes from, how it gets to them or whether its sustainable.
This sucks. I can give up eating fish. But crabmeat nevar.
the evil empire that makes up industrial farming/agriculture is the same type of villain as fish farming/harvesting. i know whole foods sells seafood that comes from sustainable fishermen, but i never bothered to look into it.
sustainable fishermen…. wow…. does that mean you can chop them down or eat them and they grow back again?
@19 – If I recall correctly, the primary species in the Nile’s receiving waters prior to the dam was anchovy, and now, it has recovered to sardines. Or vice versa. A friend of mine in Rhode Island did the isotopic research, nutrient loading, and fish stock enumeration. To date, the recovery is pretty much at original state.
And as far as ‘restoration’ goes, well, that’s whoooooole other animal. I could go for days on that. Take a look at the Chesapeake. People get a little alarmist and utopian when it comes to restoration. Groups like ‘Save the Bay’, etc., while good intentioned, seem to get the public a little more worked up than is necessary. You just can’t get back to original conditions, b/c soooo much has changed in the watershed, in the water itself, etc. The problem comes from the fact that a lot of marine sciences, in the public opinion, are ’soft’. People talk about the ‘health’ of these bays, which has 0 scientific merit. That’s like taking 2 random people, and asking “are you, person A more healthy than person B?” This is the same idea as people comparing 2 fisheries, or the same lake in it’s existing condition from 30 years ago. Complete hysteresis (reverse trajectory back to the starting point) is often impossible, ecologically. Unfortunately, we need to make every step we can get get toward initial conditions. This is my environmental ethos, but it is not shared by most. I think it’s sensible.
Fish are yummy.
Rose, I’m impressed.
I am so unhappy now because I thought fish was a nutritious and enjoyable food source. There are countless restrictions on commercial fishing, mostly beneficial and some over-the-top. In general, fisheries around the USA are healthy, recovering and sustainable. There are problems with overfishing around the world, and the solution is to institute sound management practices and let the species recover. There are many positive examples of this happening today. I say, keep eating fish, just make good choices and support the conscientious fish-people who live in remote coastal communities that deserve to make a livelihood. I’m happy again.
Whatever the state of our overburdened worlds’ fisheries, that sushi looks DIVINE. Time to make like a grizzly and salmon!
@25 what you are referring to sounds a lot like sliding environmental baselines. We keep accepting less when we should demand more.
For example, at one point the Caribbean population of green turtles (in the 1400’s) was an impossible sounding 160 million strong. Today there are armed guards on mexican beaches around nesting sites since they are so few and far between. We hope to have sea turtle populations that are a few thousand strong because people think that sounds like a lot, which it is compared to just 1500 turtles but its nothing compared to what they once were and could be.
Stories from old timers tell of water crawling with creatures and we cant even imagine it just 60 years later.
All fisheries of slow growing predatory fish and slow to mature deep water fish have seen an alarming reduction in size and thus age of their target species ( patagonia toothfish, shark, swordfish, tuna). Sturgeon breeding grounds included the Hudson, which is unthinkable now. People accept these slow reductions because its hard to notice from year to year but when you look at data from before commercial fisheries developed with catcher processor boats and helicopters, the oceans were teeming with fish.
Ultimately the toll commercial fishing takes on the ocean is astronomical. Even one guy with a shrimp trawler destroys entire ecosystems as he drags along the bottom, crushing coral, burying rocks, uprooting plants and catching tons of crap besides fish. Lost long lines and gill nets left in the water go on catching animals and killing them for years and years. And those are the legal practices.
Watch videos of illegal shark finning, where sharks pectoral and dorsal fins are cut from their bodies while alive, then the animals are chucked in the ocean to drown, their finless trunks spiraling down.
@27 the chinook salmon fishery off Oregon collapsed last year. There just weren’t any fish.
@26 good choices include fish caught with a pole and line. Sounds hokey but its true.
@28: Hear hear on that last point.
I’m gonna go read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” again and cry. Food is evil.