Appetite Stimulus Menu by Sushi Roku...

Now that's a creative way to entice diners, don't you think? Cleverness aside, the Sunday through Thursday dinner only special menu is a smoking deal at one of the hippest restaurants in Scottsdale.

It's a three course menu for only 30 bucks (excluding tax/tip/drinks, of course.)

Choose either a land or sea starter, a sushi entree and finish up with green tea mochi ice cream with fresh fruit.

Let's see, would I like the tuna tataki with ponzu, daikon wraped salmon, Kampachi with diced jalapenos or the Kobe tataki, chicken tandori skewer or miso marinated eggplant better? Tough choice. Take friends and get one of each. Sweet!

Details: Susi Roku (at the W Hotel) 7277 E. Camelback Road., Scottsdale, 480-970-2121 (www.sushiroku.com)

Trust me...

Omasake means something like "trust the chef" or "put yourself in the chef's hands." Either way, you give permission to the sushi chef to whip up something special for you.

Recently, we dined at Nobu in Waikiki, Hawaii. Sitting at the gleaming sushi bar, I recognized only a handful of the slabs of fish chilling in the case, so we decide we would "trust the chef."

In return for $60, we were presented with a long narrow board of nigiri, about 10 different pieces of fish and seafood artfully drapped over an oval mound of sushi rice. We had the usual salmon, yellowtail and big eye tunas, and halibut.

We also tasted squid, octopus, scallops, shrimp, king crab and a fish called "kiss." That wasn't the name, but it's pronounced like kiss, and it tasted like a mackarel -- strong. The last one was an eel, I think. All of it was fresh, clean, and remarkable.

We were going to order one omasake each, but our sushi chef thought that one would be plenty for both of us, especially considering that we had already tasted a couple other dishes. He was right, but what amazed me is that he thought we should start with one and see if that was enough, instead of strapping us with two (and an additional $60). Our server didn't bat an eye when we ordered two. It was the chef that showed some restraint and guidance.

Perhaps omasake does mean "trust the chef."

Monkfish Liver Lover...

I had heard that monkfish liver was the "foie gras of the sea." If you don't like foie gras, you can just stop reading now, because you'll have no appreciation for what I'm about to tell you.

We're in Hawaii, me for a culinary conference, him for his usual business. Carrie & Jay live here. She works with him and Jay is kind of like a client, I guess, but a cool one. Anyway, C & J are locals so they wanted to take us to someplace unique for dinner, somewhere not splattered all over the tourist map.

We end up at the most charming and hip izyaka (a Japanese drinking establishment with a heavy emphasis on food -- think Spanish tapas bar, without the Spain-part). It's called Sushi Izyaka Gaku and it is too darling for words.

The lighting is low, the chefs behind the sushi bar are dressed in traditional, bright yellow, black and red garb (they're Master Sushi Chefs, by the way) and contemporary jazz is playing in the background...or was until the evening waned and then downtempo techno lounge music kicked in as the crowd turned noticably younger.

But back to the food. C & J are adventurous sports, and so are we. So we put ourselves in the hands of our server. He looks like a kid from the Midwest, but he speaks fluent Japanese, so off and on throughout the night, he counsels us on a dish to see if it's to our liking, and then turns and shouts something inaudible in Japanese to the chefs (it's not a big place, he probably didn't have to shout but it seems everyone shouts in these izyakas.)

We start with lovely nori wrapped King crab and cucumbers. Delish. Next we have a small slab of meltingly tender butterfish, the thin strip of skin crisped over an open fire. Divine. Next is a hamachi collar -- also seared over an open flame. A collar is the jawbone of the fish, and is prized for the rich, dark meat tucked away in cartilage.

Next came the monkfish liver. Three salmon colored disks floating in a citrusy, ponzu sauce with microscopic slices of green scallion. The disk was chilled but three seconds in my mouth it started to melt into a creamy pool of fish liver.

That doesn't sound as good as it was. It's hard to describe, but if you love foie gras AND you love strong fishes (salmon, mackerel, etc.) then you would love monkfish liver. I'm not a monkfish lover...I don't like the texture of monkfish. But I am now a monkfish liver lover. Sublime.

These were just our appetizers, something for the Asahi and Shochu to wash down. I don't have enough space here to finish the meal description so I'll save that for another post. I just wanted to tell you about the monkfish liver, you know, in case you wanted to run out and get some.

Crabby

I have nothing against imitation crab (sometimes called krab or surimi) but sushi made with real crab just plain tastes better. It just plain costs more, too. I recently read a story about the nutritional difference between the two, and crab clearly trumps krab.

Both crab and krab are low in fat, therefore neither is a good source of the prized Omega-3 fatty acids found in other seafood, but real crab has more protein, more potassium, and less sodium than imitation crab. That's all fine and good, but for me, taste trumps nutrition and that's why I'll pick crab over krab any day of the week.