Japanese cartoons are lysergic-acid freak shows of giant robots and big-eyed children, blinking lights and talking cats, and jumpy, herky-jerky dancing-root vegetables. Japanese porno is vile and fetishistic. Japanese punk music is ten times more screechy and primal than that of any teenage American garage band -- often reduced to just three or four minutes of discordant, atonal noise and screaming feedback -- because the culture these kids are rebelling against is ten times more repressive and regimented than anything happening in the worst, most uptight town in the Midwest. Japanese sushi, though, is simplicity itself.
Mark Manger
Raising the bar: The second Kassai Sushi is on a roll.
Location Info
Details
16911 East Quincy Avenue, Aurora,
303-680-6099. Hours: 11 a.m.-10
p.m. Monday-Saturday, 4:30-10
p.m. Sunday
Inari soup: $2
Shumai:
$4.25
Yakitori: $4.25
Ebi
su: $5.25
Tekka roll:
$4
Philadelphia roll:
$4.75
Futo roll: $5
Spider
roll: $8.95
Tako (1):
$1.75
Hamachi: (1)
$2
Ama ebi: (2) $6
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In ancient Tokyo, then known as Edo, fishmongers were the street-corner hot-dog vendors, the midnight tamale sellers of their day. That their medium was fish, vinegar and rice balls rather than wieners and kraut or chicken and masa didn't make a lick of difference in the great scheme of things. What set these primitive sushi rollers apart from their modern fast-food counterparts, however, is something in the Japanese character that calls for -- commands, even -- a constant, never-ending process of winnowing and re-evaluation of anything the culture considers art. And edomae sushi certainly qualifies. The cuisine has been refined and focused and sharpened like a knife over countless generations until the leading edge of its mastery can be expressed in nothing more than a hundred grains of rice, a slip of nori seaweed and a single slice of yellowtail hamachi -- one perfect bite hundreds of years in the making. Simplicity, quiet, clear and clean boundaries, restraint, a balancing of the senses -- these are all of the utmost importance. So is a nod to the passing seasons -- not necessarily in taste, but in texture, temperature and presentation. The ultimate goal of all this sifting and examination is to determine precisely what's necessary in the enjoyment of a thing, then do away with whatever isn't absolutely essential to the experience.
There's something oh-so-Zen about sushi, something meditative and centering and pure. Even bad sushi -- like the stuff you get out of the deli case in the grocery store -- has this calming quality. Each piece is self-contained, is meant to be eaten in a single bite, and requires nothing -- no sauce, no garnish -- to improve it. Each piece strives for perfection. If it doesn't get there (and few pieces do), there's still something noble in the attempt. Sushi is a food that lays everything out, that cannot hide or disguise its weaknesses, and that's admirable. As practiced in the strip malls of our modern republic, though, sushi is changing, as the ideology (almost theology) of the Japanese sushi culture -- where a single ounce of fatty tuna belly sells for more than the same weight in pure coke and almost as much as gold -- meets the quick-and-dirty, everything-for-a-buck, cheap but vital mentality of the hot-dog man. And Kassai Sushi is at the crossroads.
As I sit at Kassai Sushi's comfortably appointed sushi bar, lost in quiet contemplation of a white plate lined with six pieces of tekka maki (that most basic of rolls in the classical canon), a pink twist of pickled ginger and a mound of fierce wasabe paste, I can tell that I'm creeping out the staff. The sushi chef toiling behind the bar keeps one eye on the dragon roll he's shaping, the other on me. The one waitress working the right-hand dining room of this smallish, suburban strip-mall space gives me a look as she drifts past, slapping sushi orders down on the bar, talking to the chef in rapid-fire Japanese that, to me, has always sounded like the quick squawking of highly educated birds. To someone looking in from outside, I must appear like one of those Hollywood FX shots -- the kind where the camera focuses on one guy moving at normal speed while everyone and everything around him is sped up into a fast-forward blur of motion, usually used to signify disappointment and alienation. To the staff, I must look like I've found something wrong on my plate. But I'm not alienated, and there's nothing wrong. There are few places in the world where I feel more comfortable than at a sushi bar. I'm simply settling in. My standard metabolism is tuned way too high for Japanese food. I am a twitchy, jittery, spastic man with unusual tastes, but I find solace in sushi. It sometimes just takes me a few minutes, a cup of tea, maybe some deep breathing, to get there.
I raise my heavy gray ceramic mug and take a sip of hot green tea. Almost before I can set the mug down, the waitress is at my elbow, topping it off.
"Everything okay?" she asks, lingering, honestly concerned.
"Absolutely," I say, giving her my best smile. "I'm just waiting."
"Someone joining you?"
"Nope." I turn back to my tea, inhale the vapors. "Just waiting."
She leaves. I pour a little puddle of soy into the dish on the bar, break apart my chopsticks, pick up the first slice of tekka maki and pop it in my mouth.
