“In Tuna, Bigger Is Better Taste, Better Texture”ff

Source: The Star

A white panel van backs into a loading dock at Apollo Seafood, an import house in a single-storey industrial strip in Rexdale. Three coffin-sized cardboard boxes stamped “Air Korea” each contain two headless tuna carcasses. Topping out at 98 kilograms, they are too unwieldy for the forklift, so the team of fishmongers in rubber aprons hoists them on their shoulders like pallbearers.

It is 9 a.m. Monday morning, and John Lee, Apollo’s owner, is being besieged by calls from anxious, wheedling bladesmen. This shipment is late — deliveries usually arrive in the dead of night — and none of the other suppliers got any tuna on this day (there are a handful of other fish agents in the game, but Lee is widely considered to have the best connections here and abroad). In fact, only six of 12 tunas Lee had purchased made the plane. The rest are due in later in the day. “Everyone is my pal when the fish aren’t flowing,” he says.

Tuna is the queen of the sushi pageant, and these guys were swimming in the South Pacific as recently as Friday. In this size range, 60-100 kg, the bluefin and yellowfin are five to seven years old. (Big-eye season is May through the end of November.) Brought to port in the Philippines, these AA grades grew fat on a diet of mackerel and sardines, and are notably more marbled than South American tuna that dine on leaner squid meat. “I’m from Korea, I know the Pacific waters better,” Lee says, winking and adding that many of the Japanese restaurants in the city are indeed run by Koreans.

To wit, Minsoo Kim, the owner of Wabora restaurants. A former pro ballplayer, Kim opened his first place in Bracebridge; his second is in the new Thompson hotel.

Of the 300 of what Lee calls “good” sushi restaurant clients he serves, Kim stands out as the pickiest. Most chefs call and order by the pound, but Kim rushes in personally for every shipment. “Each side of a fish is different,” Kim says. “And I’m competitive. I want the biggest one of every batch.”

“In tuna, bigger is better,” John Lee says. “Better taste, better texture.”

Lee nods. “In tuna, bigger is better. Better taste, better texture.”

All sushi-grade tuna arrives fresh, and can be served raw up to 21 days after it is caught if it is properly handled. Sticklers like Kim, however, insist on serving it less a week out of water.

Lee cracks a styro case and arrays the beastie on a plastic tub. You can see the marbling in the exposed neck. The innards are removed at the dock, and for such a big fish there isn’t much gut room.

You can also see the mark where a grading tube has punctured the core; grade is determined by color. Smaller tuna is red; the biggies go purple. Contaminants are also checked dockside before anything is shipped.

Lee’s mighty blade is sure and certain: it looks remarkably easy for him to bisect the centre line between loin and belly; carving along the spine requires a mallet.

As each quarter is brought to the butchery table, Kim demonstrates why he picks his own pieces: “See how the blood pools on the underside during the flight? I want the top side.

Different halves of the same fish can be very different. Sometimes one belly half (the prized toro) is half an inch thicker and significantly more marbled.”

The price of tuna shifts constantly, but this fish will weigh in at around $19 a pound wholesale, and Lee moves 5 million pounds a year (though there is a 35- to 40-per-cent loss on the butchery table).

Of course, you can buy tuna for $7 or $8 commercially, but that is generally ungraded and frozen fish.

Both Lee and Kim wrinkle their noses when asked about chain sushi shops. “I wouldn’t eat that,” says Kim, adding that chain tuna has probably been frozen more than once. “And it should have been canned right on the boat.”

What you are paying for with Lee’s goods is line-caught fish, which are “completely dolphin-friendly,” he notes a dozen times, bobbing his head till his sterile shower cap shakes.

His phone buzzes yet again, and he steps away from the carcass. A couple of fast words in Korean, then “No, no, I’m not playing you. It all went before it came in the door!”

And then another call, from his agent on the docks in the Philippines, who is flying from one port to another, tracking the boats.

“These boats are only out for 24 hours, so the fish isn’t frozen at sea. They are smaller boats. But sometimes they don’t find the fish. The patterns are changing,” he bobs his cap again, this time wryly. “Global warming. It breaks my heart when they take the little tunas. They haven’t had enough swimming yet!”