Sidebar: Hand roll perfection took time at Sugarfish

One of the first challenges faced by the team putting together the menu at Sugarfish was the hand roll: crisp nori wrapped into a cone around raw fish and Kazunori Nozawa’s signature warm sushi rice.

In fact, at first they weren’t even served because Nozawa and Jerry Greenberg thought the hurdle of getting hand rolls to guests fast enough that the seaweed didn’t become soggy was just too great.

“People don’t realize how important nori is,” Nozawa said. “It’s very fragile; it has terroir. You have to have quality nori.” And it should be eaten while still crisp.

“To get the experience of the hand roll [directly from a sushi chef], oh, my God, that’s the best,” Greenberg said. Nozawa “would make a hand roll and hand it to you, and it was a special part of the experience. But a hand roll can’t sit for a couple of minutes.”

They figured out how to make it work. It meant that no hand roll would ever sit at the pass in the kitchen, waiting to be picked up by the server assigned to the table that ordered it. Hand rolls became a priority dish. When servers — no matter which table is theirs —– see a hand roll, they take it immediately to the diner.

“It was a big deal for us,” Greenberg said. “Nozawa came in and was rolling out the hand rolls, and that first day we served them was the busiest day we ever had.”