Aficionado Intelligence Report - 14

For a limited time, you can get "shirako" sushi at Kura Sushi. It is one of this month's "recommendations" by the restaurant.  Shirako translates safely to "milt" - which may require further research. This is a food that I don't believe Andrew Zimmern has had raw. He has had shirako chowder however, so technically he has eaten this food. 

A trained medical professional provided me sound medical advice and did NOT recommend this dish despite the restaurant's proud monthly recommended list. But hey, don't let that stop you. 

Shirako on the move...(on the conveyor belt)

白子ジュレポン酢軍艦 is how it appears on the menu (bottom row, second from right). 

The おすすめ on top in yellow is "recommended" and is a good word to learn or recognize if you're going out to eat. 

The menu says "This month's recommended ippin 逸品 " Where ippin means "articles of rare beauty" or "gems" - I think the menu designer has a sense of humor...

Incidentally, 軍艦 means "warship" in Japanese and is pronounced "gunkan." It's due to the shape of the sushi roll which slightly resembles a mini warship when it's wrapped in the seaweed. Maybe you've heard of Yokosuka Kaigun? Well "kai" is sea or ocean and "gun" is army. So it's pretty easy to go from the literal meaning of "sea army" to "Navy."

this month's recommended "gems"

Now I did not try this thing called "shirako" and I felt kind of bad that I didn't have the balls to eat it. But I was able to spot another Andrew Zimmern bizarre food on the menu that I was willing to try - Geoduck.

Geoduck was featured on one of the Bizarre Foods' episodes where Andrew went out into the field to pluck his own geoduck from a seaside farm in Seattle. 

Geoduck sushi

The recommended way of eating it is with some soy sauce and wasabi. It was pretty good and tasted kind of clammy. Not surprising since Geoduck is essentially a giant clam. Of the many bizarre foods out there this is one of the more accessible ones for the average person.

* Aficionado Intelligence Reporting (AIR) was conceived of grey bearded men, through brilliant thought, in a small Izakaya on the backstreets of Yokosuka. AIR reports on little known but exceptional (or maybe just really good) dining spots or interesting food developments and relies on highly untrained observers making random observations and developing conclusions through sometimes single data point regression statistical analysis.

Any conclusions from its reporting are final.