Question about uni in Ginza, Tokyo

4 comments

1. crossposting from r/sushi

   My wife and I had dinner at Kyubey Ginza in Tokyo (a purportedly well-established, mid-tier sushi restaurant group), and we saw a chef serve uni to another couple at the counter that was noticeably browner than the bright orange uni that we are used to seeing.

   We were shocked to see them serve uni that looked like this, especially since the guests were an elderly white couple that looked like they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between good and bad sushi. The uni looked dark, brown, and old.

   I wasn’t able to take a better photo, but you can see a bit of the uni in the tray if you zoom in.

   Can fresh uni be this color? Any help would be appreciated here!

2. Uni comes in lots of different colours. Just look on Google images.

3. Looks pretty normal to me. Honestly I don’t recall ever seeing bright orange uni in Japan.

4. Others have mentioned that uni’s color can have a lot of variation, even in the same box. It’s hard to tell from the picture either way, but I’ve had uni served in the still-moving urchin it was taken from that was fairly dull and darkish in color (This was probably in Otaru, Monbetsu, or Wakkanai, I don’t remember exactly, but it was fresh from the sea that morning), and the only picture I can find of uni that I ate when I lived in Hokkaido is very pale in parts (like a pale pumpkin flesh?), but I don’t know the provenance of it because it was part of a keiseki dinner and served on shredded radish in a shot glass.

   My experience with old uni was that it didn’t really change color much as it spoiled. I got a box similar to your picture at some point and took what we didn’t eat home and kind of forgot about it for several days. After I remembered it was there it looked much softer/wetter than it originally did (note: I’ve had “wet” uni that was great, but most has appeared somewhat dry) and absolutely *reeked* of ammonia, but the color hadn’t changed much if at all, so I don’t know if brown colors mean much of anything outside of that fact that I, personally, haven’t seen uni I would describe as brown. I didn’t eat much uni all told.