Sushi Ten

Picture, for a moment, your favorite neighborhood bar. Not a fancy place, just the kind of establishment you might drop by after work for a beer and a few bites. Now, imagine that it’s run by a tough as nails sushi chef, her semi-professional bowler husband, and their awesome punk rock daughter. It’s an unusual place, especially given that female sushi chefs are a rarity in Japan. But what keeps me coming back is not the novelty but the warmth of the Fujisawa family and their insanely satisfying and comforting food. Moreover, the shop has been around for thirty years, as noted on the noren above (おかげさまで三十数年 – “thank you for thirty years”). They must be doing something right, no?

Go West

For a long time, I fantasized about traveling past the sprawling metropolitan areas of Kantō and Kansai to western Japan, which I’d hoped would be less developed than the densely populated and heavily industrialized area I live in north of Tokyo. Perhaps it’s something in my Scandinavian-American blood, this incessant urge to go west and explore unseen lands. (Admittedly, the promise of new and interesting food factored into my thinking as well.) Having already seen two of Japan’s least populous prefectures, Shimane and Tottori, I decided to swing south to the Sanyō coast and travel west along the Seto Inland Sea, which some have called “the Mediterranean of Japan.”