Take a look at these video clips from 60 Minutes about how tuna sushi ends up in restaurants.

This one kind of old but still funny.

Here go the dietollahs again!

First it was mercury in canned tuna. Now according to article linked by Drudge, tuna sushi has dangerous amounts of mercury.

NEW YORK: Recent laboratory tests performed for The New York Times found so much mercury in tuna sushi that a regular diet of even two or three pieces a week at some restaurants could be a health hazard for the average adult, based on guidelines set out by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Eight of the 44 pieces of sushi The Times purchased from local restaurants and stores in October had mercury levels so high that the Food and Drug Administration could take legal action to remove the fish from the market.

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Tuna samples from the restaurants Nobu Next Door, Sushi Seki, Sushi of Gari and Blue Ribbon and the food store Gourmet Garage all had mercury in excess of one part per million, the “action level” at which the FDA can take food off the market. (In recent years, the FDA has rarely, if ever, taken any tuna off the market.)

It’s always something with these dietollahs. If it’s not mercury, it’s saturated fat, sodium or nitrites. I’ve eaten at Nobu in Las Vegas, and the food there is DELECTABLE!

I’ve also had some nasty cases of food poisoning, which have never been from sushi. And in all honesty, I would feel much more comfortable eating sushi vs. a tuna, egg salad or whitefish sandwich from some dirty greasy deli.

It seems there are always new Japanese restaurants popping up all over the Upper East Side (as well as the rest of Manhattan for that matter). While these places are good enough for every day sushi cravings, very few of them even come close to Shabu Shabu 70.

Located on East 70th Street between First and Second Avenues, Shabu Shabu 70 is for serious lovers of Japanese cuisine and sushi. Adn the prices reflect that. The tables have tiny pots on them, so you can cook your own entree at your table (usually thinly sliced meats, vegetables and seafood). You can also order tempura, teriyaki and sukiyaki dishes.

But all the times I’ve gone there, I’ve focused on the sushi, and different appetizers. And without exceptions, the sushi has always been excellent. It’s not like you really have to ask the sushi chef about which fish is best. They’re all good, all the time. Whenever I go, I sit and the sushi bar. And the chefs usually make me an appetizer consisting of fish in a spicy sauce, similar to what is used in spicy tuna rolls. Or other times the fish is marinated in a soy-vinaigrette dressing.

The salads are made with red and green leaf lettuce, and luckily, they don’t use that sweet ginger dressing. In fact their dressing is a little too salty, even for me, and I have a salty tooth. But, you can always ask for the dressing on the side.

In terms of appetizers, they have an excellent sauteed mushroom dish, which is out of this world. They use shitake and oyster mushrooms, which they prepare in a light buttery soy and garlic sauce. It’s excellent!

So if you are in the mood for a special treat, I would say this is one of the best restaurants on the Upper East Side. Their contact information is as follows:

Shabu Shabu 70
314 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
Tel: (212) 861-5635

Sato is located on Second Avenue close to 73rd Street.

The restaurant’s good points are that the decor is trendy. The chairs at the sushi bar have red back cushions. It’s a nice place to go on a Friday or Saturday night, with a date.

It’s slightly more pricey than Marumi, (reviewed below) but still not very expensive. Their deluxe sushi comes with one california roll, which I don’t like. However, they agreed to substitute it for a tuna roll, which I appreciated.

The main courses come with your choice of either miso soup or salad. Many Japanese restaurants have that very sweet ginger dressing, which I absolutely hate with a passion. (The best salad dressing in my opinion, can be found at the East chains. The dressing is not sweet at all, and has soy, along with ginger.) Sato’s salad came in a nice oblong bowl, with what appeared to be that same kind of dressing. Fortunately, it was also sesame based, which made it less sweet.

The sushi deluxe certainly looked nice enough. But I just wasn’t crazy about the fish. It’s not like it was rancid or anything. It just wasn’t as good as Marumi. And the individual pieces of sushi were also smaller than Marumi’s.

Anyway, to sum up, it was a very nice looking place. But the sushi was so so. Here’s their contact information if you want to try the place out for yourselves:

Sato Japanese Restaurant
1395 Second Avenue (73rd St.)
New York, NY 10021
Tel: 212-737-1838

Here’s their very trendy looking website.

Marumi on LaGuardia Place in Manhattan, is where I routinely go to meet an old college friend for dinner. The food is always good. The place is lively, with what appeared to be NYU students, and the prices are not bad.

My friend always orders a bento box dinner. It included a few slices of beef, three pieces of small fried dumplings, an appetizer portion of shrimp and vegetable tempura, one California roll, and about four pieces of sushi.

Since I’ve been eating like a pig lately, I had deluxe assorted sushi, which they call sushi-jo, and a tempura appetizer. All the main courses come with your choice of miso soup or salad. The only down side was that it came with one California roll, which they did not want to substitute with a tuna roll. However, they did agree to make it just an avocado roll. The salmon was excellent, as was the tuna, and the pieces were rather large. Everything was good, except for one piece of white colored fish.

Via New York Daily Photo

Anyway, if you’re looking for a conveniently located, inexpensive restaurant right in the middle of Greenwich Village, Marumi is the place to go. Here’s their contact information:

Marumi Japanese Restaurant
546 LaGuardia Place
New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212-979-7055

Subway Information
B, C, D, E, F, Q, V trains to West Fourth Street
R train to Prince Street
6 train to Bleecker Street

What are your favorite kinds of sushi?