There’s a reason why customers plan their sushi dinner at Mumbai restaurant Yuuka around the arrival of Hokkaido uni
If you hail from a family of voracious pescatarians, you would be prepared for most things that come from the sea. But, while you might have savoured catfish roe or tuna tartare, the sight of raw uni takes some getting used to.
We are slightly perplexed, therefore, when Chef Swapnil Doiphode brings out a tray of uni at Yuuka by Ting Yen. We are on the 37th floor of St Regis, Lower Parel, with the Mumbai coastline flung ahead of us, but all we can look at are the close rows of uni sitting on the tray. They are an alluring sunrise orange but, honestly, they look like little tongues. What’s more, uni (pronounced oo-ni) is the roe-filled gonad of a sea urchin (each sea urchin has five of these). Currently, Yuuka is the only restaurant in town serving this delicacy.
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Uni can be eaten as sushi or nigiri (below), which is prepared with maki rice, or as sashimi (right), where the seafood delicacy is served raw. Pics/Sneha Kharabe
“Like all the other ingredients at the restaurant, we import fresh uni twice a month, from Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market,” says Doiphode, who joined Yuuka in 2014 and has been helming affairs since this year.
In January this year, Doiphode vacationed in Japan, where he first encountered uni from the island of Hokkaido. Hokkaido uni is among the most prized varieties in the world, and looks more orangish than some other varieties (uni’s colour usually ranges from a light mustard to a deep orange). For Doiphode, it was love at first bite.
He says that while locals in Japan break open sea urchins to scoop out the uni, it is different for professionals. Like fugu (Japanese for the pufferfish, known to be poisonous), uni requires a licensed chef to de-gonad it.
As the tray disappears back into the safe havens of a freezer, Doiphode says, “With a short shelf life, uni is one of our most expensive ingredients. One serving of uni sashimi, which has just about 20 gm of uni, costs Rs 1450.” He pauses, and then adds, “With taxes.”
Chef Swapnil Doiphode assembles the uni sashimi platter at Yuuka
Seek out the uni sashimi, sushi or nigri on the menu and you won’t find it. Customers reserve this delicacy and sometimes, plan their visits to the restaurant around it. You’ll have to ask, and if you are in luck, you shall receive. “We started serving uni when a customer requested it. For now, we are looking at how open Mumbai’s Japanese gourmet crowd is to it. We usually suggest people to try out sushi or nigiri — since they come with maki rice — rather than make a direct plunge for sashimi, which only has raw uni,” explains Doiphode.
To serve the sashimi, Doiphode heaps raw uni in an empty sea urchin shell, its brown spines still intact. With a flourish of freshly ground wasabi to top off the uni, the sashimi is ready. “The wasabi should counteract any possible side-effects that people might have to eating raw fish,” says Doiphode, reassuringly.
When we sceptics don’t pucker up to the uni, Doiphode proceeds to make a nigiri and gunkan (with seaweed wrapped around maki rice) with the uni. He asks us to try it, and, to our surprise, the uni tastes delicious. It’s sweet and briny at the same time, making it hard to pin-down the flavour. But as it melts into your mouth, you experience a cloudburst of light custard that reminds you more of a dessert, rather than seafood.
“It is supposed to be good for one’s virility,” says Doiphode, as he goes on to talk about how the protein-rich uni is an aphrodisiac, like oysters or avocado. Is this something he tells his customers about? “No, best they find out themselves,” he smiles.
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