When I used to live in San Francisco, I could often clean up on freebie’s that other people did not eat just because I was friends with the itamae and they knew that I—like a two year old baby, will basically put anything in front of me in my mouth. This includes among other things, the deep fried heads of shrimp and the deep fried bones of aji—a small fish of the hikarimono (literally means something shiny, refers to the skin) type.

This is yet another thing that I have been unable to find in Philadelphia, but recently I spent a few weeks in Hawaii, which is about as close to you can get to Japan in the states. I arrived in the sushi bar and the itamae told me they had aji. I immediately asked for hone no senbei, the deep fried bones. I was told that if I ate all of the sashimi from the fish he would deep fry the bones for me.

The beautiful presentation above is the aji no sashimi. In between the head and tail are thin slices of fish. The meat of the aji is really too small to eat as nigiri sushi. It was served with a spicy red sauce that I could mix in my soy sauce to taste. After I finished all of the meat, the itamae took the bones back and deep fried them for me. They are salty and crunchy and light, almost like a really crispy French fry. So delicious!

January 3rd, 2008 by John (Cho-Tabetai)