A Sushi Story With Fifty Five East

Fifty Five East in Grand Hyatt Mumbai is pretty well known for its hearty Sunday Brunches. The place is a perfect blend of upscale dining and casual food, with warm wooden interiors that draw inspiration from sunlight passing through leaves in a forest. I’ve always wondered where the name ‘Fifty Five East’ came from – and turns out, it is the Pincode of the area where the Grand Hyatt is located – Santa Cruz East.

How very 91210!

*high 5 if you know what I mean*

It was all about the #SushiStory on Saturday evening, when Chef Shohei Nakajima gave us a hands-on demo on the intricacies the Japanese classic, Sushi. You’d wonder how difficult it is to prepare a dish that comprises of raw fish and rice.

Well, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

We spent around 20 minutes just learning about rice, knives, vinegar ratios and other intricacies of sushi-making.

Kohuho rice is used specifically for sushi and is imported from Japan. It is boiled, soaked for 30 minutes and strained for a specified period of time before being emptied out into a huge, flat-bottomed wooden tub called Bandai.

The rice is spread and stirred around so that the wood absorbs all the excess water. Quickly after, sushi seasoning is poured in while simultaneously mixing and fanning the mixture with a rice paddle. This slightly sweetened rice wine vinegar mixture is added in the ratio of 70 ml of vinegar to 2 kgs of rice.

Japanese chefs are very particular when it comes to their Sashimi knives. What makes them different from normal knives is the fact that they are only sharpened on one side, allowing them to get the sharpest edge and finest cut. The knives used for various meats look different – for example, the vegetable knife has a sharp (menacing-looking) rectangular blade.

Here are some of the types of sushi that Chef Shohei demonstrated.

Nigiri – Essentially 180 grams of salmon over a ball of sticky rice, this dish is refreshingly simple to the palate. While we used salmon, one can use an array of seafood, each having slightly different coloured flesh which gives the plate a vibrant, colourful appearance. The raw fish on top is called ‘Sashimi.’ For vegetarians, we learnt that one can use capsicum to substitute for the fish. Once you soak it in the rice vinegar mixture, it softens and can drape over the rice, to look like bright-fleshed fish. One can even use mushroom, asparagus or just about anything on top of the rice.

Temaki – Usually called the hand roll, temaki involves wrapping fish, vegetables or a filling of your choice into a seaweed cone. I didn’t taste it, but it looks so pretty!

Hosomaki – When one thinks of sushi, this is probably the image that comes to mind. Hosomaki are sushi rolls wrapped in seaweed. It looks fairly simple to make, but I’m sure It isn’t. One must place a sheet of dried seaweed on a flat surface, evenly spread sticky rice on the surface with a slight ridge in the centre and place fish, cucumber, seasoned crab meat, capsicum or filling of your choice inside. Roll it up, cut into slices and serve.

Uramaki –   Uramaki slightly differs from other sushi because the rice is on the outside with a coating of sesame seeds. This one is my personal favourite!

This is served with a side of soy sauce and wasabi. You may think that eating raw fish is disgusting (I did, too – until a few months ago.) But it really isn’t bad at all!

Check it out.. I sliced my fish like a pro!

Our workshop was followed by a #MonsoonHighTea! Indian monsoon snacks like pakoras, rajbhog, dal wadas, samosas and more were placed on a beautifully decorated cart, draped in pink.

Alongside was a table similar to the roadside chai-wala’s – with a pot of boiling tea, long tea drums containing tea from Maharashtra and Gujarat with iconic Mumbai chai-tapri glasses. The attention to detail was appreciable – and the table was even complete with teapots from distant lands and a toy auto-rickshaw!

Oh!! I hope you read my post on Great ‘Quick Vacation’ strategies!

I’m taking a quick trip to Ahmedabad this weekend! Keep up with the adventures (or mis-adventures, in my case) on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Do you know of a place I absolutely MUST visit? Comment below and let me know!

Cya next time!