Taisho of Daikanyama "In" and Seiya, the 17-Year-Old Who Hopes to Become His Apprentice: Sushi Training Seen from the Counter

After the previous shoot, Seiya practiced on his own back in Hokkaido. He bought flounder at a local supermarket, broke it down into five fillets, made nigiri, and served it to his grandfather and father. Last time, the taisho had assigned homework practicing with kitchen paper, but he never once said "Make sure you do it" afterward and stayed silent until today. Seiya had done that too.

The taisho reveals that he intended to decide whether to take Seiya on as an apprentice based on whether he would do it without being told. Ryuji agreed that what matters is "whether you're motivated or not." Wearing a cap when he came into the restaurant was also Seiya's own decision, not something the taisho had told him to do.

For the roughly four days of this visit, the two were together literally 24 hours a day. After service and prep, they went out to other places, and at Seiya's request they even went fishing. Seiya says that last time he learned "how to relate to people," and this time he learned about "bonds with people." Ryuji noted that fewer people are aspiring to work in the restaurant industry, where you have to do prep and service while others are resting, and said that is exactly why he wants to support young people like this.

The first dish was filefish caught that day. According to the taisho, filefish at this time of year has no liver at all, so among fishermen it is considered "absolutely no good." Ryuji, however, likes fish with some bite, so he says he enjoyed the clean, light summer filefish. It was killed and bled right after purchase and brought straight back to the restaurant, so it had no fishy smell. Seiya, who went along for the purchasing, recalled that the taisho's "level of dedication is insane."

Next came octopus from Sajima. According to the taisho, it is at its peak season right now, but this year it has been hard to catch. Sajima is the leading octopus-producing area in the east, and its octopus is said to be the most delicious in the Kanto region. Because the octopus grow up eating things like spiny lobster, their flavor is rich. Ryuji had thought octopus released water when you chewed it, but this octopus didn't, and he praised its clean bite. The restaurant buys it raw and boils it in-house, and the taisho says it is completely different from Toyosu octopus that has been tenderized by breaking down the fibers.

The taisho asked Seiya whether he could tell if this octopus was male or female. Seiya pointed to the arrangement of the suckers, but the taisho said that was "slightly off" and assigned him homework to look up the difference.

Seiya says that even in the car while they were driving around, the taisho kept talking to him for his benefit. During service and prep, the taisho is very strict. On the other hand, when they drove to prep or went into the public bath together, he taught Seiya things even his parents wouldn't tell him, like how to be considerate of others. Seiya says he felt that the taisho "does it with love."

The taisho says that nowadays the risk falls on the person giving the warning. We live in a world where saying even a little can be taken as power harassment, so the prevailing mood is that it's better not to say anything. The taisho says he himself is often told that. Even so, he believes this is "nothing but a negative" for young people. Unless someone is willing to take on that risk and speak up anyway, people stop wanting to teach anything. If you meet someone like that, you should absorb what you can and be grateful. However, the people who speak up aren't doing it because they want gratitude. So once you're grateful, you can repay them when you're able to. The taisho said it comes down to whether you encounter people like that in the rest of your life.

The black cod had a strong flavor of shio koji and amakoji, and pairing it with the mildness of green onion balanced the taste. After this, they moved on to nigiri. First was tuna. Seiya struggled to find words and just smiled. What he finally managed to say was "I can't put it into words" and "It's too delicious." Ryuji has lately been making a point of visiting other sushi restaurants too, but he said the taisho's tuna and conger eel stand out far above the rest.

Watching Seiya eat the flounder, the taisho said, "You're nervous, I can tell from how you're eating." Today he was a customer, so he should enjoy himself. If you know what it's like to feel nervous as a customer, then when you stand behind the counter yourself, you can treat customers in a way that helps them relax. That was the taisho's explanation.

Seiya revealed that in the car, the taisho had told him, "When you come to Tokyo, I'll look after you. I'll be your father." The taisho himself played dumb, saying, "Did I say something like that?", but with those words, all the strictness and kindness up to that point welled up in Seiya and he started crying. The taisho, who was driving, says he was surprised when he looked over and saw Seiya in tears.

Seiya says he also wants to train at other restaurants. The taisho told him, "If you can't be considerate, you'll embarrass yourself when you go to another restaurant. If you embarrass yourself, I'll be sad and frustrated too." Seiya takes this to mean that wherever he goes, the fact that he trained at the taisho's restaurant will never disappear, so if he disgraces himself, it will reflect badly on his master. Ryuji added that the taisho's words meant "I'll take a certain amount of responsibility for you," and that there are very few people these days who can say that.

About a dish of flaked crab topped with sanbaizu vinegar jelly, caviar, and salt, Ryuji emphasized that "the taisho's caviar is caviar with a purpose." At many restaurants, caviar is just decoration and doesn't have much to do with the flavor. The taisho later explained the reason. Crab right now isn't winter crab, so it's light. Adding caviar introduces a contrast in the form of the richness of roe, broadening the enjoyment.

Seiya, who is from Hokkaido, said he eats crab back home too, but the crab he had eaten didn't have such concentrated umami and was watery. The crab is bought raw and boiled at the restaurant right away. The cooking liquid is replenished and reused. According to the explanation, liquid that has been used about five times develops harshness and makes the boiled crab taste bad. Conversely, on the first use the stock is too thin and the crab doesn't pick up flavor. The third use, when there's flavor but no harshness, is said to be the best.

Flying fish purchased in Sajima was served as tataki. It was Seiya's first time eating flying fish. Ryuji recalled that it used to be sold cheaply at the neighborhood supermarket. The taisho pointed out that supermarkets these days don't stock much fish, and young people don't know what fish look like whole or how to eat them. Seiya also says the number of supermarkets that carry fish keeps shrinking. Even in Hokkaido, when he looked for fish to practice with, he went around to about four stores and still had trouble finding any. Ryuji said fish is becoming "something you eat out."

The conversation turned to saury. When Ryuji was a child, even 50-yen saury was fresh. According to the taisho, the saury he bought the other day was 10,000 yen apiece. The day before that it was even more expensive: ordering 10 of the top grade came to 300,000 yen. When he was shocked, he was told "Even 30,000 is cheap." Ryuji had long said that saury is only cheap because it's plentiful, and that if it became scarce, it would be as delicious as a luxury fish. He said that is exactly what has happened.

Isaki (chicken grunt) that the taisho and Seiya caught when they went fishing the previous day was served with the skin on. Isaki has fat between the skin and the flesh. Seiya described it as "having a nice aroma," and Ryuji praised his choice of words: "Aroma, not smell." Seiya had always thought that fish with texture, like flounder and flathead, were low in fat and mild. Isaki had texture yet was also well marbled with fat, which he says was a new discovery. Back home, he had also bought isaki and made carpaccio by searing only the fatty part of the skin.

What Seiya said he was grateful for was how they spent their time after service. As the master, the taisho would have been within his rights to say, "You eat, I'm going home." Even so, he ate the same meals and took Seiya to all sorts of restaurants, telling him to learn how other places taste too. The taisho said it lets you know where you stand, and that experience is the best education there is.

The previous day, the taisho had also "brutally torn apart" Seiya's cooking. His point was that as a single dish it was tasty, but it wasn't restaurant-level food. Some plates are like palate cleansers; not everything is the star, and you have to strike a balance. Like the combination of crab and caviar earlier, introducing contrast also makes for an interesting presentation. That's what the taisho said.

The cutlassfish that followed was served with salt and wasabi. Ryuji raved, "I had no idea there was such a delicious way to eat cutlassfish." The sea urchin served was the very best. Because it's in season, the individual lobes are still firm. The nodoguro (blackthroat seaperch) was a first for Seiya.

During his previous training stint, Seiya had met another fellow trainee. He is a first-year high school student aiming to become a sushi chef and the son of one of the restaurant's customers. Seiya says that, at his master's suggestion, they exchanged LINE contacts and keep in touch. Seiya explained that his master had helped him expand his connections (jinmyaku) for when he eventually comes to Tokyo.

The taisho reacted to this. He corrected him: "I never told you to increase your connections. I told you to make more friends, didn't I?", insisting on the difference in wording. According to the taisho, connections are important and are an effective way to ask people and learn from them when there's something you want to do. But in Tokyo there are people who make a living on connections alone, and the taisho has seen people like that. If you rely too much on connections, your heart dies, and you start competing on connections rather than ability. That's because, with other people's help, you can get by even without any real skill of your own. So the taisho says connections should be used only when it really counts, and he dislikes people who use them all the time.

Ryuji laughed, calling it "a connections allergy." He then summed it up by saying that "en" is a meeting that is meant to be, a relationship in which you also properly prove your ability, earn recognition, and lift each other up, and that's why it's a good thing.

Seiya named as his bad habit acting on his own judgment without checking first. It came up in the previous video too, and he says he was called out for the same thing again this time. The taisho says many people try to decide things themselves without checking because they don't want to trouble others. Even so, you have to check once with the person who is responsible. He explained that this is less about being a cook and more something you need right away in any group setting, and that it can be solved with just a word.

Ryuji says that people forget a lot after 10 or 20 years, but the things they still remember are ones that made a considerable impact. He suggested that Seiya will probably still remember his training here and his appearances in these videos 20 or 30 years from now. Seiya replied that when that time comes, he'll edit everything out of the old videos.

A stock made from the nodoguro was also served, and Ryuji said that precisely because he has had it many times, he can really tell the difference. At this point, the taisho stated once again "the thing I most want to teach." From here on, many people will appear who want to use Seiya. That's exactly why it's important to discern the people who invest their time and effort in you and still act for your sake.

Near the end of the course, small fish that Seiya had prepped entirely by himself were made into nigiri. These fish are so small they would normally be deep-fried whole, but Seiya opened and prepped them one by one. Asked whether it had been hard, Seiya answered, "It was fun." Ryuji praised him for being able to say he "loves" this kind of work.

As for his path after graduation, Seiya says he has decided on his own to come to this restaurant. Whether that is allowed is up to the taisho. The taisho assessed that since last time Seiya has grown further as a person, can now properly say "yes" to anything, and has passed the bar when it comes to how he responds. That said, he says Seiya's knife skills and the like still have a long way to go. The course closed with conger eel, which the taisho proudly calls "the best conger eel I know."

Asked for his impressions, Seiya said he had been to a sushi restaurant course costing around 10,000 yen, but the level was completely different. He had thought that a sushi restaurant basically served only sushi. In the taisho's course, soups were served between the sushi, the saltiness was adjusted just right, and it was a deliciousness he had never tasted before.

If he had to pick just one, he answered the nodoguro stock, and the taisho was delighted: "I knew that would come up." Creating such a memorable flavor with a clear stock is extremely difficult, he says. Second, Seiya named the isaki. When Seiya added, "including the nostalgia bonus from going with the taisho," Ryuji quipped, "That makes it sound like it wasn't delicious," drawing laughs.

What the taisho really wanted to hear wasn't a ranking of flavors. It was what Seiya felt sitting as a customer. During his training, Seiya worked at the washing station. His master had told him never to stand around spacing out, because he would be in the customers' line of sight. Sitting in a customer's seat today, he says he understood for the first time that this is how he was being seen. The taisho says that after having Seiya experience everything on the inside of the restaurant, he then lets him enjoy it from the customer's side, and that's when things become visible. "This is what education is," the taisho said.

Seiya had also noticed how staff member Misuzu moved. She placed plates and other items on the left side for a left-handed customer. Misuzu remembers customers' names, dominant hands, preferences, and so on, and when she can't remember everything, she takes notes. According to the taisho, he has never once told her to take notes; she started on her own after thinking about how she could manage it. The taisho told Seiya to start taking notes from today, and said that what he has been taught he can teach the next time he has juniors—that this is how things are passed down. He also said he was happy that what Misuzu had worked hard to learn had now been passed on to Seiya.

Ryuji said that being a sushi chef is a "hybrid" profession that handles cooking and customer service at the same time. Even when you're seriously focused on cooking and a customer at the counter talks to you, you have to respond smoothly. Customer service depends heavily on instinct and powers of observation. Ryuji believes that being able to do this is what sets the taisho's restaurant apart from others. He says he understood this well when he brought his grandmother there before, and he told Seiya that if he masters this hospitality, he "can become an amazing sushi chef."

Finally, Seiya was to make one piece of nigiri each for Ryuji and the taisho. The knife he used was one the taisho bought for him during his previous training, when he said "Follow me" and took him to a knife shop in Kappabashi. The taisho thought it might be too early, but judged that Seiya could use a knife of this size. The steel is also good quality. But when he checked the blade, it had barely been sharpened. Sharpening a Japanese knife is difficult, and only part of the tip had anything resembling an edge.

The taisho's verdict after eating the first piece: "The topping is good. It's no good at all." The second piece, made after switching to his master's knife, earned the comment "Better than before." When the taisho made nigiri with the same topping himself and had them compare, the difference was clear.

Ryuji said it's remarkable to meet someone you can call a mentor at 17. He also said that unless young people like this carry the restaurant industry forward, there won't be any restaurants left for him to go to when he gets old. Seiya wrapped up by saying that this time he learned about "en," and since they also took him to places he wanted to go, he will work hard so he can repay their kindness next time.

The series is set to continue, and one idea for next time is for Ryuji and the others to visit the kitchen at Seiya's school in Mikasa City, about an hour and a half from Sapporo. They say they'll bring Misuzu along too. Seiya's knife skills are still a work in progress, and whether the taisho will formally accept him as an apprentice has not yet been decided.