In Japan, a sushi chef will study for years just to learn the proper way to use a knife. He will apprentice himself to a master chef, work insanely long hours, learn everything he can about rolling fish up with rice -- and then spend a lifetime getting better and better at it. For hundreds of years, the Japanese have labored to refine the art of sushi, and while there are dozens of places in and around Denver where you can experience the fruits of all this obsessive attention, there's one that stands out: Opal. Executive chef Duy Pham is a freak for freshness and perfection, sometimes getting in three shipments a day from suppliers so that nothing ever sits, nothing ever ages. He keeps a close eye on his two sushi chefs -- Herry Fnu and Mario Moscoso -- and makes good and goddamn sure that every plate, every roll, every scrap of fish and grain of rice is exactly where it belongs. Since even something as simple as a cucumber roll takes on an element of the divine when this much attention is lavished upon it, imagine the heights to which something as delicate as sea urchin or complex as the Golden Dragon roll can be raised when subjected to such scrutiny. No matter what your passion, trust in the traditional rigor and exacting hands at Opal to do it better than anyone else.