It’s not as easy to get real wasabi as you may think. Because of the high price of the condiment, most places will serve you a colorized mixture of American horseradish and mustard masquerading as wasabi. Therefore, when you are able to indulge in authentic Japanese horseradish with our Bellevue Japanese restaurant, you will want to make sure you use it properly in order to get the most out of your sushi experience.

The trick with wasabi is knowing how much to add to your fish. You want to complement the flavor of your sushi without overpowering it with that of the wasabi. For the most part, the sushi chef will have already prepared your sushi with an amount of wasabi he deems appropriate. Should you wish to add more, though, remember this rule of thumb: oilier fish can take more wasabi, while less oily fish does better with less.

Our Japanese restaurant in Bellevue is very familiar with how seriously sushi chefs tend to take their craft. In many restaurants in Japan, the diners can actually expect to see live fish butchered right in front of them to assure superior freshness. And, in places where this is somewhat less acceptable, the chefs need to get creative. This was the genesis of kaimin katsugyo.

Kaimin katsugyo, or “live fish, sleeping soundly”, is a practice utilizing some of the same theory of acupuncture, whereby a live fish destined for sushi is pierced by a series of needles in key places. This is designed to put the fish into a coma-like state, where they breathe steadily and can be bled out without stress. In this way, a fish can be effectively preserved with no composition as it is flown from Japan to the US, where it can allegedly be prepared with a greater taste than you would find in an untreated piece of fish. Whether or not this practice actually works is something of a mystery, but sushi prepared with kaimin katsugyo tends to cost roughly twice the price of a normal piece of sushi.