"My first lunch at Yajima Sushi, in Tokyo, felt more like a kidnapping. There were open spots at the counter. But the chef, Susumu Yajima, instructed me to take a seat nearby and wait. Eventually I was summoned to a place directly in front of him, and the attack began: Piece after piece in rapid succession, as Yajima barked orders at me. “Eat now!” he said, milliseconds after passing me a glistening slice of buri (amberjack) atop shari (the finger of rice that forms the base of nigiri sushi). “Use your hand!” he upbraided me, as I reached for my chopsticks. He even instructed me to half-chew one piece before washing it down with sake." - urbansheep@gmail.com

“When I summoned up the courage to ask about this, his wife, Yoshiko, yelled from the kitchen: “He’s just strange!” Yajima nodded. “I’m just forcing my way onto my customers,” he agreed. But slowly, over the course of several meals, he opened up and told me more: How he’d become a chef; how he and his wife had run their sushi-ya together for almost 34 years; and how the story of his life, and this place, was encapsulated in his Ten Commandments of Sushi.” - urbansheep@gmail.com