Ordering Sushi From an iPad = Cool!

You better believe that if we had a larger and wider demographic to try to target that we would have already built some innovative technologies to help our customers enjoy and interact with our restaurant even more.

Recently on this blog, we've covered sushi iPhone apps, online games, and other cool innovative advances in the Japanese cuisine market.

Today, we wanted to highlight the latest and greatest innovation we've seen in the market. Now, you are able to order sushi from an interactive menu on your iPad.

We can argue that ordering via Twitter is still awesome and effortless for our customers, but having an iPad application that you can look at and touch everyday probably trumps the Twitter idea anyday.

Take a look at this video of the application in use and let us know if you think more restaurants should start adopting this type of application and whether or not you think this could improve upon sales and customer satisfaction.

If only we were a large corporation with multiple locations. We would definitely be working on launching something similar to this as we publish this blog post.

Cooking Sushi Rice in a Rice Cooker

After scouring the Internet, we found a random post / complaint from someone that had attempted to cook sushi rice at home in a rice cooker. This is what was posted:

I just bought a Cuisinart 8-cup rice cooker and tried to cook sushi rice in it for the first time. It was a disaster! Waaay to sticky & mushy. I cooked Japanese sweet rice and used the ratio recommended on the package (not for rice cookers) which was 1 1/c cups of rice to 3 cups of water. My instruction booklet did not give a ratio for this type of rice but it has another one for “sushi rice” which is 3 cups of rice, using the rice cooker measuring cup, and 2 1/4 cups of water plus 2 tablespoons of sake. Perhaps I should have used that? When I added 3 cups of water to the rice in the cooker, it came to the “2″ line. What did I do wrong??? I have made nearly perfect sushi rice on the stove before but wanted the cooker for convenience. Help!!

 

We wanted to post about this because we have talked about cooking your own sushi at home before. It's fun and exciting and if you're going to put forth the effort to try it, we want you to do it properly so that your meal takes how you want it.

 

 

So our response is below. This is how it is done.

 

You cook the rice using equal parts rice and water. Before cooking the rice, rinse the rice until the water runs almost clear. Next, cook your rice in the rice cooker until it's done and open the rice cooker to let the rice dry out a little bit. In a small pot, mix 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar with 1/4 cup sugar and a pinch of salt, and heat until the sugar is dissolved. Put the rice into a separate bowl and add vinegar mixture to rice until you have reached the stickiness level desired. Try not to mix the rice too much to prevent mushy rice. Finally, enjoy your perfectly seasoned sticky sushi rice.

No one said making sushi was easy. Haha.

10% Off All Catering In August

In our last email newsletter (hint hint: you should subscribe), we talked about how we now cater all types of events.

Imagine having a spread of sushi like this at your next event.

This time, we're going to take that announcement a step further by offering 10% off all catering jobs in the month of August.

We can do large parties, business luncheons, and virtually any other type of get together. Just give us a call to book us in advance.

And as most of you already know, we can also bring our Naked Sushi extravaganza to parties. That adds so much fun and excitement to any party.

Interesting Japanese Dining

I just read an article that takes the notion that a lot of Asian dining rituals are odd to a completely new level.

The above picture introduces the new Japanese dining experience that I am now calling "The Surgeon Cannibal."

According to the article I read, it is "...a pinata-like 'body' is carefully crafted, then stuffed with edible goodies in a red sauce. More 'sauce' is somehow embedded into the outside covering - 'skin'... - of the body so that it will appear to bleed when cut into..."

The red sauce would have to be absolutely magnificent for me to even try this.

What do you guys think about this? Would you try it?