NEARLY 40 YEARS AGO, I arrived in Japan for my first job out of college and mustered the courage to try sushi. I ordered a standard set arranged on a wooden board and ate each piece in turn: fluke, tuna, yellowtail, octopus, shrimp, salmon roe, and, finally, a slab of something yellow and spongy that scared the bejesus out of me. What part of fish anatomy was this? Maw? Later I learned it was simply tamago: sweetened egg omelette, usually reserved for a last bite.
By the time I left Japan a couple of years later, sushi was my favorite meal.
In the intervening decades, last September about the new wave of omakase, it seemed like the city had reached peak sushi. Our cover star was Kyoten chef Otto Phan, who serves some of the best wild fish available on the world market for those willing to pay for it.
