Head sushi chef quit and I took over.. learning to prep the seafood from youtube mostly.. lol

18 comments

1. You’ll want to prep the Unagi skin side up, and partially frozen. Use a santoku, or the thinnest sharpest blade you have. Four finger width and finishing straight down is very important for Unagi. Good luck!

   I’m also mostly YouTube taught, as my “mentor” turned out to be a misogynistic asshat who taught me nothing for seven years because he was worried I’d take his job. That attitude is exactly what did him in and I took his job 😂 books, YouTube, and sub Reddit’s like these are invaluable! We may not (though never say never) be traditional sushi masters but we can still learn and appreciate the art.

2. Not bad, nice knife, I’m sure you’ll reach Chef level soon!

3. You cut the white fish wrong. You should dissect from middle and start cutting flipped skin side down from tail, or skin side down from head.

   I do skin side up from head, better

4. May I ask the reason for pre-cut white fish?

   I understand pre-cut unagi but unless you plan to use all that Tai (I think that’s Tai), the separate fillets will smell if not served the next two days.

5. Where are you slicing at? I’ll support you if you are near

6. I’d cut the unagi at an angle skin down but then again I’m not a sushi chef. Good luck new chef, it sucks you got stuck in that position.

   Edit: I’ll also say that I hope with more training you can parlay this opportunity into a chef position at this restaurant or another one if you should continue down this path.

7. That surf clam looks great dude, Keep up the good work!

8. For YouTube videos, I recommend Hiroyuki Terada. The guy is a sushi master and has some crazy dishes like his bon-bons and the infamous “Hiro’s Cube”. He has plenty of basic how to videos of preparing common rolls and cutting salmon, tuna, etc. His camera guy can get a little annoying sometimes. But it’s mostly due to the fact that Hiro’s English isn’t perfect, so cameraman does most of the talking. His knife skills are amazing, and he even has a few knife sharpening vids that’ll help keep your yanagiba nice and sharp! Hope this helps.

9. Hey, first of all, good job. I’d get rid of the bamboo cutting board, I also have one for unimportant tasks but don’t use them with Japanese knives, they’re too hard. I also watch lots of YouTube videos, but mostly Japanese. There are plenty of great channels to follow that are worth watching for the different techniques. Check out Ginza Wattari, Yuji, Nara Hirozaku are the ones I remember from memory but there are many.

10. I came to the comments thinking it was going to be a bunch of negative energy. I am pleasantly surprised. This subreddit rocks

11. Looking good! Take advantage of this opportunity and run with it! Good luck!

12. If it is frozen, what’s the defrosting process for eating?

13. I got my first chef job by telling them in the interview that I made sushi at home all the time. I had never done it and spent a weekend on youtube doing the same thing.

    Just put one foot in front of the other and one day you will look back on today and smile.

    You can always double up on the garnish too if the food isn’t perfect, people eat with their eyes first.

14. So far so good. Peace out from Japan.

15. Not sure if you were prepping or what but I would suggest not cutting things ahead of their being ordered. Even if it’s busy, sushi is all about “fresh” and you’ll NEVER see nice places in Japan pre-slice things. Obviously if this is just training then disregard 🙂

    If they try to make you make rolls like California rolls ahead of time to just leave for when they’re ordered later, don’t. Rice will end up drying out and while it saves time the customer won’t appreciate it.

    For fish like tuna and salmon, if you make mistakes, don’t throw them out – keep them for rolls and you can layer the mistakes in to get the right size, or even chop up for something like poke.

16. YOU GOT THIS!

17. Unagi… yum

18. Wher you located?