breaking down its molecular structure in a desirable way by freezing it quickly in a medical-grade blast freezer, where it will stay for a week or longer at minus 82 degrees celsius. he pioneered this technique years ago in new york, where, if you bothered to ask, he would ve proudly told you that the absolutely unbelievably sublime piece of perfect sushi you were eating was frozen. mm, delicious. yasuda: thank you very much. anthony: which is more important, the rice or the fish? yasuda: rice. anthony: or what percentage? anthony: rice? more important? yasuda: uh, about 90%. anthony: wow, that s yasuda: fish is a second ingredient. the main ingredient is rice. so, my sushi is rice. [ laughter ] anthony: yasuda, he still trains, though his fighting days are over. he says he was tired of hurting people.
and, uh, people think, oh, freshest should be good. but, it, it wasn t. anthony: yasuda s menu changes constantly with what he finds in the market. and like thousands of other sushi chefs, he heads every day to tsukiji, tokyo s central fish market. where nearly 3,000 tons of the world s best seafood arrives every day. but unlike most others at his level, who arrive at 4:00 a.m. to cream off what they perceive as the best and freshest, yasuda-san arrives later. he does not buy the ridiculously expensive otoro, the fatty belly meat of the blue fin tuna, that people have been known to pay hundreds of dollars a pound for. instead, he buys tuna from the heads, using his knife skills to go for qualities that most others miss. removing every bit of sinew from what would otherwise be a difficult piece of meat. in tow, it s well, perfect. and he cures the results, actually cures it.
anthony: in japan, there is a very old, very deep and very rich tradition of martial arts. many styles, many schools. the yonekura gym in toshima ward focuses on boxing, and this man, kenji yonekura, is a legend. having trained generations of fighters using a simple and effective philosophy that has some real application to our story. there it is, pasted on the wall behind the ring. one, speed. two, timing. three, distance. this same idea applies to the convention shunning sushi techniques of new york city legend naomichi yasuda. until recently, the chef partner of one of the very best, if not the best sushi restaurant in new
anthony: yasuda is a friend, and my master in the sense that he s taught me pretty much everything i know about sushi over the years. he s a very, very interesting and complex man, who constantly surprises. yasuda: tony-san, this wasabi is one of the most expensive wasabi. so, i wait, wait, wait. uh, finally, this one goes to the, uh, discount box. then, i bought this. anthony: that s very french of you. [ laughter ] so many things separate yasuda-san from other japanese sushi masters. the most noticeable is his hands. they re huge. look at the knuckles, enormous from years of pounding cement walls during repeated daily practice in kyokushin karate. he first trained and competed in tokyo. and when he came to new york, he continued to practice.
A critically acclaimed sushi chef, most recently of New York City, is coming to Dallas to open a special kind of restaurant: Called Tatsu Dallas, it's an