Sustainable, Delicious, Sustainably Delicious

A few months ago, I read an article in the Seattle Times about a sushi restaurant in Seattle that, after being open for nearly 15 years, was closing their doors and reopening as a 100% sustainable restaurant. I was intrigued and filed it away to investigate further.

Now that we are eating more consciously, I thought it was time to check out this restaurant.

I did some reading about sustainable fishing prior to our visit and the most important thing I learned was that if things don't change, the oceans could be empty by 2048. Here's an article from the National Geographic about it. That's a staggering fact. Of course, that's someone's speculation, and may not necessarily be true, but it's something to think about in any case.

Most of the sushi served in restaurants is not sustainable. Just read about unagi and bluefin tuna, if you want to know more.

But back to this sushi restaurant. It's called Mashiko and is in West Seattle. We went because we love sushi, and because we're trying to be more conscious. I'm so glad we did; everything we ate was delicious (including things I never thought I'd like) and I didn't miss any of the non-sustainable dish.

We got omakase. That means the sushi chef, who also happened to be the owner, got to choose what we ate. We told him "no land animals" and that we'd eat anything else he put in front of us.

This is what we had (raw, except where noted):

Oysters, kumamoto and gold creek
Geoduck with yuzu tobiko
Nigiri consisting of: albacore belly, spotted mackerel, and toro
Kombu marinated rockfish
Grilled oyster with sake butter
Cooked geoduck with uni butter
Fried shiso leaf with uni
Pacific saury roll with shiso and salmon roe
Baked black cod
Albacore poke (with seaweed, pine nuts, and onions)
Black cod liver*
Salted squid with fermented cod eggs
S. Carolina catfish, tempura sweet potato, and avocado roll**
Fresh jasmine pearl creme brulee
Satono homare sake

*Black cod liver is a substitute for monkfish liver. In my opinion it is way better than monkfish liver. I didn't like monkfish, I liked black cod.
**South Carolina catfish is an unagi substitute. The way it was prepared, I wouldn't have noticed a difference. The beautiful thing about it is that the supplier of this catfish strives to make a good environment. The water is recycled and whatever can't be recycled is used for irrigation. The fish are fed a vegetable based food. There are no pesticides, no herbicides, no hormones, and the water is filtered to prevent algae blooms. The sad thing? This catfish is more expensive than the nearly extinct unagi.

Our dinner was three hours long and it was blissful. We got to talk to Hijame Sato about the fish and sustainability. We talked about global warming and the environment.

I can't wait to go back. And if you're in Seattle and like sushi, you should go too.

I can't personally vouch for these (yet!), but check out other sustainable sushi restaurants: Miya's Sushi in New Haven, CT and Tataki Sushi in San Francisco, CA.