Ganko Sushi lies perpendicular to the Kamo River on Sanjo-dori at the end of the well-trod Potoncho nightlife area in central Kyōto. Basically the place to get sushi in Kyōto if you’re not looking for an overly cerebral and desolately expensive experience in any of the city’s numerous kaiseki houses. The best thing about Ganko Sushi is- beside the food, service and ambiance – it’s fun. You got your just-flirtacious-enough waitresses all intricately done up in kimono, the boisterous shouts of at least 30 employees in a never-ending call and response of the customers’ every whim, and then there’s the bar. I should capitalize that. The Bar. The counter – an aged and well-carpentered slab of Oak – seats approximately 25 and always fills up first and fast. If you’ve ever sat at the counter at your local sushi joint, then you’ll have a hint of what this place – a great primer for a long night out – is like on a Friday night, in the rowdiest neighborhood Kyōto has to offer (at least for poor non-yakuza schlubs like us).
So it was with excitement and not a little bit of anxiety that M. and I walked into the nearly deserted, though highly recommended Ganko just a little after six. On the way over, having strolled through the reclusive Geisha neighborhood of Gion and environs to work up an appetite (and see some culture, dammit!), I mentioned to M. what my plans for the evening’s dining were, expecting her to be ecstatic -Sushi in Kyōto: Holy Spicy Tuna!– due to the fact that she had served in a sushi restaurant the better part of our oh-so formative college days. In my mind you work in a sushi restaurant = you eat sushi. I’m horrible at math but this is easy. Apparently not.
“Umm, I’m not the biggest fan of sushi you know…ohh, I love sake and everything, but, well…let’s just see how it goes.”
“You sound like my grandma!” And that’s not a rip on granny, she who lived through the Great Depression and on ration coupons during WWII and was indoctrinated that those barbarian Japanese eat their fish – blech – RAW! Holy rainbow roll, time was getting grandma to come eat sushi with me whenever I felt the yen, but nowadays she actually invites me out to the local Japanese place. After a few years of living in Japan, grandma was putty in my hands, while M. it seemed, would prove a more difficult challenge.
Our chef does the usual double take when we enter, soon coming to his senses and welcoming us to sit down in front of him, muttering something about “muubee sutahz…?” I didn’t quite catch. I immediately started jabbering away at him in my best bar-room Japanese, trying to get him to warm up to us and get his knife slicing through blocks of sashimi like warm butter. We order drinks and I quickly spy the toro.
The quality of gari (the pickled ginger) is generally how I can tell a good sushi joint from a mediocre one, which you generally receive with a small dab of wasabi on a block of cedar before any slicing starts. Tasting this first is a must, because it can tell you quicker than a chef can tataki an aji how the rest of the night will go. A good chef makes a fresh batch everyday prepping for tomorrow and if it’s old you know the fish won’t be far behind. One feels like a wine snob swirling and swishing and spitting out when sampling the gari…But! It is a must and once tested and passed (our guy’s was great) it’s even easier to enjoy the rest of the meal as you know it will be superb. As it’s not always a good idea to start out swinging for the culinary fences., one must build themselves up to the bottom of the gastronomic 9th, down by two, two on, and so on.
So we watched. And drank. And watched some more until finally our chef pulled out the most gorgeous strips of anago (conger eel) I’ve seen since Tsukiji, grilled them up and basted them in a thick mixture of brown sugar, soy and mirin (sweet cooking ricewine). I ordered two. And another beer. You have to stagger the orders a bit though. Two strips of anago are likely to drive most sane people into some sort of saltwater-based sexual deviancy (more later…).
Anago, being an ocean-going creature, is generally lighter in color, less oily and has an all-around smoother flavor than its riverbound cousin Unagi. M., abstaining once I told her it was eel (goddamn English namby-pamby way of naming food which turns everyone off! “Ooh, slimy and…electric…wha?“), watched intently as I slithered the lengthy half-cut into my mouth and my eyes did the roll into the back of your head on tastebud ecstasy thing.
“Good?”
“Ummm, gimme a second here…Yeah, heh, it’s good. Aburi Sa-mon!” (seared salmon) I politely shouted at our chef when he had a free moment. He never wrote anything down, though had at minimum ten orders to prepare at any given moment. The bar already full, the rest of the place beginning to pulse, we could feel the energy build. Our chef was now serving upwards of 12 people at the bar, all the while preparing the various mori-awase (sushi samplers) plates for the larger parties seated behind us. All the while calm as could be, shouting out “Yorokonde!” at each customer’s bequest. My Pleasure. Imagine the waiter at your local dining establishment, vehemently uttering out upon each successfully placed order, “My Pleasure!” and you will know how M., even with all her restaurant experience, jumped in her seat everytime he did it.
“Jesus! Again? We get it already, you’re pleased…”
But he didn’t get it already. He was in his element, doing the only thing he wanted to be doing anywhere in the world on a Friday night. Serving traditional Japanese sushi to a couple of wayward crackers in one of the best sushi dives in Kyōto, which puts it in running for best in Japan. I smiled and ordered another negitoro (minced fatty tuna and scallions wrapped in rice and seaweed) for M. After being put off by the initial pink and mushy ground beef look of the toro she smiled and dug in. She was getting into it, eating more, giggling with the waitresses and having a good time. Hungover this morning in neon overload Osaka, all one needs is a bit of Kyōto calm and sushi to begin anew.
Sushi in Japan is not fancy, not by American standards. Sushi here maintains a strong and formidable presence with roots tracing back to old Edo, and Korea and China before that. The flavors, subtle though they are, can be at times forceful, which is why a good sushi chef is more an alchemist than a trained monkey. The blending of various catches at the peak of freshness with well-seasoned rice and other expertly prepared ingredients ultimately should culminate one’s dining experience into the utmost of umami, though this takes a master. Our man didn’t know what a dragon or rainbow roll was. Certainly he could make them, but he didn’t care to. Mastery of his domain meant serving the tradional fare in a sublime way. Which is why I was so surprised when I saw one of my favorite dishes served in a way I’d never experienced: geso-nigiri.
Geso references tentacles. Be they tako (octopus) or ika (squid), they are by far the most surprisingly delicious culinary treat I’ve encountered in my Japanese sojourn thus far. That is, as M. delicately pointed out with her tongue in wretch position, once you become accustomed to the texture of munching down on chewy suction cups. Not partaking only left more for me.
At this point we were on hour two, beer four (or so) and the place was packed, customers reminding me more and more of the scene in Spirited Away when Chihiro’s parents so overly gorge themselves on everything in sight that they turn into swine. Seeing it’s clearly time to move on, I decide to hit the toro sashimi and leave on an upnote before venturing out to one of the many local sake houses which line Potoncho. By this time M. has tried almost everything I have, her face glazed and happy, she’s full but not stuffed, which is how a good sushi experience should always end. A large part of the difference between U.S. and Japanese sushi excursions has to do with the fact that sashimi and nigiri-zushi are by far the most popular forms of sushi fare here, while various too cool for school maki-zushi rolls are the hands-down choice of Americans everywhere. Meaning what? Simply that in the U.S. purveyors of sushi generally eat more rice in a given outing. You leave stuffed and satisfied after a seemingly healthy meal, but in reality you’ve just paid out the bee-hind for a trip to the Disneyworld of Carbs. I think the would be band name M. and I came up with back in college sums it up nicely: No Carbs After Five.
