Most people, if they eat wasabi, mix a little with soy sauce and dip their sushi in it. Others (I am one) eat wasabi plain, slathering it on their tuna rolls like peanut butter and weeping throughout the meal. The cool fire lights up the sinuses, like a combination of cayenne pepper and Vicks VapoRub.
But if you’re eating sushi locally—even at high-end places that fly fish in daily—you’re not eating fresh wasabi. In fact, you’re probably not eating real wasabi at all.
Wasabi is a Japanese root, part of the cruciferous family Brassicaceae, which includes cabbages, mustard, and horseradish. Chefs I spoke to estimated the price of a single root (five to seven inches long) at about $35.
In its place, they’re using wasabi powders that can be marginally authentic—meaning they contain a small percentage of wasabi root—or just consist of American-grown horseradish, hot mustard extract, and blue and yellow food dye. The powder is reconstituted with water to form a Play Doh–like paste.
On a quest to find real wasabi, I started at Wasabi, an inexpensive spot on Washington Avenue that serves terrific sushi platters and affordable bottles of wine in a kitschy space. The wasabi at Wasabi has a ferocious bite that delights me. Fresh wasabi actually is milder, the chef told me. No disappointment, then; those of us who love the heat probably prefer Americanized paste.
Next, I went to Origami, where the chefs wear ties and aprons and remind me of the courtly North Minneapolis butchers of my youth. Executive Chef Koko insists that his paste has real wasabi in it. (He handed me the package as proof, but everything was written in Japanese.) Origami is Minnesota’s gold standard for sushi. I had octopus ceviche and Dynamite Maki with yellow tail and garlic bean sauce. As promised, the realer-than-most wasabi had a surprisingly mellow taste.
At Anemoni, food preparation is theater. This is the most beautiful sushi bar in the Twin Cities. Chefs here—including a master named José who came from Cosmos a year ago—are into fusion. The best thing on the menu now is the Double Crazy: a monstrous roll made of tuna (chopped inside, tartare on top), plus asparagus, cucumber, chili oil, sriracha, and chopped serranos. This is the nacho platter of the sushi world and a dollop of “wasabi” from Wisconsin is like guacamole on top.
Wasabi
wasabimn.com
612-338-6688
903 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis
Origami
origamirestaurant.com
612-333-8430
30 N. 1st St., Minneapolis
Anemoni
aziarestaurant.com
612-813-1200
2550 Nicollet Ave., Minneapolis
Editor’s note: Food and wine writer Ann Bauer is standing in for “Dining” regular Peter Lilienthal, who returns in March.
Restuarant News
• How many sushi restaurants can Uptown support? The latest to test capacity is from the owners of Mt. Fuji in Maple Grove, who planned a January opening in the former Mysore Café.
• Roat Osha’s recent opening stretched Uptown’s other big restaurant category, Thai. The owners also have the nearby Tum Rup Thai.
• The After Midnight Group has been working toward the early-2009 opening of Cowboy Slim’s Saloon in Uptown, which will have a menu of roasted meats, pan-fried fish, and things like sloppy joes. After Midnight owns the Cabooze and Sally’s Saloon and Eatery in Minneapolis, and also is opening Cowboy Jack’s Saloon in Plymouth this winter.
• Harvey McClain has opened Tosca in the space next to his Turtle Bread shop in Minneapolis’s Linden Hills. Serving only breakfast and a lunch menu of pastas, salads, and sandwiches to start, Tosca planned to add dinner service in January.
