Urchin toward Bethlehem

One of the benefits of living in Sacramento is the proximity to both mountain and sea, but the River City is a tad too far from the ocean for my taste, particularly when it comes to seafood. I’m not saying you can’t get fresh fish this far inland—one of the best fish dinners I’ve ever had was at Pimperelle’s, a French restaurant in Reno. But the long truck ride from shore to table can make a difference.

Local aficionados of uni are all too aware of this fact. Uni is the Japanese word for the “roe” harvested from sea urchins. Roe is in quotes because uni really isn’t roe at all. It’s the genitalia of the sea urchin, male and female, ovaries and testes, scraped out of the spiny creature’s spherical shell. The color of mustard and the consistency of custard, uni looks, feels and sometimes even smells more like something you’d find in a diaper instead of in a sushi restaurant selling for three bucks a pop. But initiates know that concealed inside this ghastly clash of color and consistency lies an unparalleled taste experience—assuming, that is, the putrid-looking substance has been harvested fairly recently.

Hardcore uni enthusiasts have been known to don wet suits and brave the white shark-infested currents off the California coast in search of their prey, scraping and sucking the genitalia out of live sea urchins on the spot. The aforementioned distance makes this implausible for most Sacramentans, who must rely on the friendly neighborhood sushi bar, which may or may not have uni on the menu on any given night.

There seems to be no logic regarding the supply of uni in local sushi restaurants. Always in high demand, thanks to its sweet aromatic flavor and alleged properties as an aphrodisiac, uni can be hard to find here. I’ve asked for it at a half-dozen sushi restaurants during the past year, and have come up empty handed each time. On Christmas Eve, as I entered Futami, the modest sushi restaurant located in a strip mall on Freeport Boulevard’s restaurant row, I had no idea whether I’d find the substance I was craving.

Futami may be the most unassuming sushi restaurant in Sacramento. While the interiors of most Japanese-American restaurants are a study in rigid formalism, Futami has a comfortable, lived-in quality that lends itself well to casual dining. There are the usual paper screens and lanterns, but American informalism has triumphed over Feng Shui.

It was early evening, but the place was filling up quickly. About half the patrons appeared to be Japanese Americans, a good sign. My Japanese American waitress smiled and joked with me as I ordered the chicken teri-yaki/tempura combination. Then I popped the question.

“Do you have any uni tonight?”

Her eyes lit up knowingly.

“Yes, we do,” she said. “But it is very expensive, six dollars.”

“I’ll take it,” I said. “And how about some maguro as well?”

The chicken teriyaki and the tempura were strictly old school: sliced chunks of dark leg meat slathered with a semi-sweet glaze and shrimp and vegetables coated with thick, flaky breading, then deep-fried in oil. I prefer a lighter, updated take, with white breast meat and thinner, crispier breading, but each to his own.

I sat there staring at my uni the whole time I was eating the chicken, the tempura and the excellent maguro nigiri (strips of raw tuna served on little blocks of rice). The mustard color of the gel-like substance, placed atop a bed of rice and wrapped in nori (paper-thin seaweed) to hold its shape, was truly repulsive—the kind of thing you’d only eat on a dare. But I knew better. If it was fresh, the uni could send me skyward. If it wasn’t, well, I don’t want to talk about that.

I placed one of the two bite-sized morsels into my mouth, devouring it whole like a snake, squeezing it between tongue and palate. The taste of soy, wasabi and seawater exploded in my mouth as a sweet, slimy substance slid down my throat.

It was good uni, not the best, but good.

Around these parts, I’ll settle for that.