Rosemary Parkinson, Gleaner Writer
Left: The clam soup was as absolutely divine as it could be. Right: The seaweed salad with calamares was perfection.
- PHOTOS BY ROSEMARY PARKINSON
GRAND LIDO NEGRIL
MUNASAN RESTAURANT
Norman Manley Boulevard
Negril
Reservations required.
Phone: (876) 957 1010
Evening Pass - all inclusive: US$99 per person
JAPAN. LAND of an awesome culture and unimaginable beauty - lovers of everything Jamaican, known as the home of the Geisha girl (as portrayed in the movie Memoirs of a Geisha). Japanese culture, like other eastern ones, is filled with a sort of mystic tradition and one of these is their cuisine.
Although the Japanese have found a new mode of 'hanging out' after work called Izakaya where appetisers and sake are served, the rest of the world seems still totally enamoured with the Japanese Sushi Bars - they are everywhere and very successful. In Jamaica we have two independent Japanese restaurants, both in Kingston - East Japanese in Market Place and Japan at the Hilton Hotel - and several within the enclaves of the all-inclusives. But none has impressed me as much as the Japanese restaurant Munasan within Grand Lido Negril. By the way, would-be restaurateurs out there - how about independent Sushi Bars in Montego Bay, Ocho Rios and Negril?
First, let's get to know a little about Sushi and Sashimi - for they are quite different. Once we leave Grand Lido's Munasan, not only will you understand how to eat Sushi and Sashimi but you might want to try making Sushi yourself. One thing for sure - your taste buds will be tantalised!
SUSHI
Beginning with normal the stuff, Sushi is the overall word for this type of restaurant - called Sushi Bars because one sits around a bar, watches the chef prepare and eats. Now, Nigiri sushi is a bite-sized piece of sushi rice (Japanese short grained seasoned with Awase-zu - rice vinegar, sugar and salt) with a similar size of fish, shellfish or vegetable (this includes avocado 'though this is a fruit).
Maki sushi is a sheet of nori (seaweed, dried, roasted and pressed thinly into sheets) wrapped around rice, raw fish or different fillings. Temaki sushi is a hand-rolled sushi using the nori wrapper in the shape of a cone.
SASHIMI
Sashimi is especially prepared sliced raw fish - that's it. The fish normally used at sushi bars are Blue Fin, Yellow Tail or White Tuna, Salmon, Yellow Tail Amachi, Ahi, Shrimp, Crab Meat, Lobster, Octopus or Squid, Eel (unagi), Mackarel (simi saba), Caviar or Roe, just to name a few and are carefully prepared almost straight out of the sea. Many more rare and strange types of fish and crustaceans are and, believe you me - all equally as exciting to the tastebuds. There's even one type of fish that if not cleaned the correct way can kill you instantly - this is also known as one of the most expensive of all Japanese dishes.
OTHER ACCOUTREMENTS
Wasabi is the little green mound served with sushi and sashimi and is derived from a plant related to the mustard. Usually found in powder form, a top chef will grate his own. Those twirls of pink on the plates are Gari - pickled ginger - sliced nice and fine to complement the Wasabi. Hashi-Oki is the wooden or ceramic holder for your chopsticks or hashi. I think we all know about Japanese soy sauce or shoyu which is made from wheat and soybeans and of course, one cannot leave out sake - the most divine of Japanese fermented 'wine' which should be drunk warm 'though some prefer room temperature.
Now making your own sushi is depicted in the photos step by step - so you can get right to it.
Now eating sushi and sashimi has its rules and here they are:
The Dos:
Pick up sushi or sashimi with chopsticks or fingers only.
Dip the side with the fish into soy sauce.
Place entire piece into the mouth ensuring side with the fish hits your tongue.
Use the blunt end of your chopsticks when sharing food with others from a main plate, the fine end to eat with. When one is finished eating, the sticks go across the soy sauce dish.
The Don'ts:
Do not play around with chopsticks.
Do not bite sushi or sashimi in half.
Do not put a huge piece of ginger onto your sushi or sashimi. Wasabi is for this. Ginger is the palate cleanser.Do not dunk rice or Wasabi into soy sauce.
MUNASAN
Barry Barnes was the Maitre D' at the Grand Lido Munasan Japanese Restaurant and it was he who lead the way us most ceremoniously to the sushi bar. My partner and I were not going for the Teppanyaki (this is the area where food is cooked on a large hot-grill table surrounded by patrons) although the crowd were having a world of fun as Chef Dennis McGaughlin fooled around, throwing ingredients up in the air, giving riddles and jokes - singing "What a wonderful world in between" using the sides of the Teppanyaki grill as his drum. We wanted Sushi and, most of all, my preferred Sashimi.
Chef Randie Anderson, trained in New York, loves international cuisine but mostly he is crazy about oriental and if you watch him like a pro at the Sushi Bar, you would be proud to know he is a born and bred Jamaican. Randie is a veritable encyclopaedia on sushi and was more than happy to explain every detail about what he was doing, the type of fish, how to make sushi rice - whatever you asked, there was an answer and always with that gorgeous smile. So basically, once settled with our sake, all we had to do was say 'Omakase Chef' meaning, serve us whatever you like Sir, for you know better.
We started with a Calamari Seaweed Salad marinated with sesame seed oil that was so refreshing, the different tastes of the green wakami seaweed - the red marinated in ginger - was to say the least, clean with a fine taste. Next was Clam Soup. Simple and very digestive. The assorted Tempura Combo of seafood and vegetables lightly battered, fried and served with a light soya ginger sauce was excellent preparing my guest and I for the feast that was to come - an enormous platter of all manner of 'goodies' from the bar. In fact, just read the beginning of the story - just about all those different types of fish mentioned together with the octopus, caviar, eel and mackerel, we had a bit of everything for tasting.
Now I will admit that the smaller plate (photo shown) is what you would normally get but maybe I have a face that screams "spoil me" because I was, and as I sit here writing this review I am still sipping sake, tasting all the various bits and pieces of finely sliced fish, I am flirting in my head with Wasabi, I am cleansing my palate with Gari (ginger) and would do anything to drive across right now to Munasan in Negril; do this all over again, finishing our evening in Japan with an alluring Vanilla Ice Cream, covered in honey and sesame seed. Why don't you?
Dewa Mata Atode and until then Ki O tskute.
I've heard it said that the week in which a young girl prepares for her debut as an apprentice geisha is like when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly. From Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.
JAPANESE SUSHI RICE
Japanese rice is a medium-grained rice that gets sticky when cooked. This is the only rice used when making sushi.
Three cups Japanese rice
Three and a quarter cups water
One third cup rice wine vinegar
Two tablespoons sugar
One teaspoon salt
Prepare sushi vinegar by mixing rice vinegar, sugar and salt.
Wash rice well until water is clear. Cook it well in a pan or rice cooker.
Prepare the sushi vinegar by combining the rice vinegar, sugar and salt in a small pan.
Heat on low until sugar dissolves. Cool this mixture. Spread the hot rice on to a large plate (or
Japanese wooden bowl called sushi-oke).
Sprinkle the vinegar mixture over the rice and fold carefully so as not to mash the rice. Use right away.
(Makes 6 cups sushi rice).
