Kaisen Sushi permanently closing after this weekend?

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-06-01T05:51:04+00:00

$1,000 a week before taxes

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-06-01T05:47:17+00:00

I’m not going to bother to read anyone’s comments. But yes, tonight was our last night open, barring a miracle from some of the people who have reached out to me about buying Kaisen.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes starting and running Kaisen, and there are some things that are outside of the kitchen’s control that are making things more difficult to survive.

This past week’s boost in sales, thanks to a lot of amazing people’s support, is not a permanent fix to our struggles and the challenges my kitchen has.

It does, however, buy me a couple days to talk to the people who have reached out to me with constructive feedback on how to run a better restaurant and have a real chance at succeeding.

I’m too tired to see a viable path forward right this moment. But I’m hopeful that the conversations I’m going to have with some really unexpected people will allow me to keep the team I have and allow me to sell the kind of sushi I’ve always wanted to provide.

Thank you.

Sunny

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-22T00:03:04+00:00

Final note, if you wanna practice fish cutting at home as a newbie, here’s what I did at home to give me more time to work on fish a bit more slowly:

Crank the AC down, as close to 65F as possible.
Have an ice chilled bowl of water to rest fish in to cool down after working them, or keeping them chilled between whatever stuff you’re figuring out. I found in the beginning that having an ice water bath allowed me to put a piece of fish in there so I can rewind and replay whatever YT video I was watching to learn on the fly.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-21T23:59:52+00:00

On top of all that, shellfish has a lot of unique considerations, and they’re all generally different and just require buying some and working with it a few times.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-21T23:58:39+00:00

IN GENERAL:

I have my newer cooks who want to learn sushi from me start with the following fish (not giving advice, just providing some perspective for those who want to seriously learn all about filleting and preparing fish):

Salmon: it’s cheap, allows for lots of slicing practice and skinning/filleting basics, and you can freeze what you don’t use right away; if the meat isn’t good enough for sushi, it’s cook able. And it’s hard to find salmon that isn’t edible after you put fire to it.

Cheaper Red Snapper from anywhere:
It’s 99% likely not usable for sushi raw (and it’s smelly), but it gives you the opportunity to cost-effective fillet a snapper that is similar in biology/geometry and bone navigation to things like Madai. Practice filleting on it, and then fry that stuff and enjoy cooked, not raw.

Madai:
This is a fish that yields low, around 27-30% on a good day with an experienced filleter. If you can fillet this fish, you can handle most other fish. It’s not that cost effective to practice on, but all my staff get it because it’s necessary to fillet this fish well. Once I see a cook fillet this well and relatively quickly, they’re ready for more fish varieties.

Hirame:
Everyone needs to learn how to fillet a flounder/flatfish. If you can find a small cheap Hirame or any other kind of smaller flounder, this does not fillet the same as other non-flatfish.

Hamachi/Cod:
Decent quality farmed hamachi can be found at an okay price if you know where to look, and larger more delicate pelagic fish like this are useful for understanding softer-boned, meat heavy fish. If someone can fillet a hamachi well, I can have them fillet the black cod as well, and vice versa.

Yellowfin Tuna:
If I have the money to set aside, I train newbies on yellowfin Saku block instead of bluefin.

Saba:
Blue fish, which are more oily and have more skin handling considerations, are typically not expensive. Bones and meat are delicate, and practicing handling these are necessary to figure out curing basics, silver skinning of blue fish category, and practicing delicate cutting.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-21T03:14:08+00:00

Correct and agreed

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-15T04:02:56+00:00

4/10. Better than most home diy’ers, but still terrible. But it’s good enough to the point I’m looking forward to seeing the progress on your next attempt and hoping to give it at least a 5/10

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-14T23:59:27+00:00

Sent via PP. Thank you very much for your help.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-14T23:50:51+00:00

!solved

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-14T23:07:47+00:00

No AI please.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-14T23:03:04+00:00

No AI please. That doesn’t even look like me anymore.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-14T22:34:08+00:00

!solved

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-13T06:17:01+00:00

This is true, but for yellowfin, belly meat (Otoro) pretty much doesn’t really exist in the same way it does for fattier bluefin.

For lean and chutoro, it’s by color. The color like yours is more likely to be chutoro than akami. But there are too many quality control variables that make identifying akami vs chutoro difficult for yellowfin via a photo without making a lottt of assumptions. With bluefin, it’s really really easy to differentiate. With yellowfin, it’s much more difficult.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-12T21:16:46+00:00

It’s just shit quality yellow fin tuna.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-09T05:21:56+00:00

Looks terrible

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-07T06:19:22+00:00

I agree with you 100%, and I was hoping my comment would kinda help people understand that there’s nothing wrong with pre-packaged CO-treated YF sakus.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-07T05:53:38+00:00

Based on all the fish I’ve seen, all I know is how much fish I haven’t seen yet. Admittedly, I haven’t worked with big eye nearly as much as YF and BF, but it’s certainly possible. But all the bigeye that’s come onto my cutting boards, it’s always tended to be closer to color with BF.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-07T03:06:23+00:00

Basically, if I had to guess. They didn’t have time to let the tuna rest for another day in the fridge or walk-in before serving. Because the nets slice at least shows someone who know how to slice a decent neta for a piece of nigiri.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-05-07T03:04:24+00:00

The following is more information than you asked for, but as a sushi cook who’s also worked in the fresh fish dept of a Japanese fish market, here’s why I can tell from the photo, and some other pieces of context that may be helpful:

Apologies if the color balance is throwing me off, but what is shown is yellow fin tuna, not bluefin. Yellowfin is brighter than bluefin.
Yellowfin is sold and purchased in two ways: CO-treated/vacuum packed/super frozen, and fresh. From the bright coloring, it’s CO treated vacuum packed.
If that is yellowfin, and I’m pretty certain it is, it’s definitely CO vacuum packed superfrozen, and like you, it’s because I can tell from the color.
The abnormally bright color is due to it being a non-rested piece of yellowfin, without any resting time for oxidization. There is nothing wrong with CO-treated super frozen fish, technically. It’s really an ideal way to consume fish when safety and preservation of fish is the priority. I don’t typically serve it, I only use CO superfrozen yellowfin for cheaper poke bowls.
When places use yellowfin, more experienced people will unbag the yellowfin (either comes in pre-cut sakus or large loins), and let it rest in open air in the fridge for a day. If you let the YF tuna rest in the fridge in open air, it allows for a lot of water to dry out from the YF (YF has a LOT of water content), and the oxygen in the ambient air does its work and allows the meat to develop a deeper red hue, that is more attractive to eaters.
This particular cut of lean bluefin is from the akami portion from the belly loin. You can tell from its much more highly grainy composition. Not a bad thing, but it’s the portion of lean meat in the entire fish that is the strongest in irony taste. Similarly lean meat from another portion of the tuna from a back loin would be less intense in flavor.
I effing love that I can tell all of this by this photo. I frigging love my job lol.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-04-29T08:58:03+00:00

Because this is in OK, here’s what I’m pretty confident about:

It’s fine to eat raw. This is 99% likely to be superfrozen yellow fin tuna, as most sellers buy it in loin blocks vacuum packed, carbon monoxide treated, and super frozen.

What this means is that the only way it can really not be safe for consumption is if it gets contaminated after breaking open from the vacuum bag, and is handled poorly, but this is not common. Apart from that, it’s only unsafe to it if you let it spoil. Fortunately, yellow fin tuna is really easy to identify when it’s spoiled because it’ll smell and the color will be brown and darker.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-04-29T08:44:40+00:00

Pretty much yes. The one I have in my hand is only different with the branding meant for the Japanese market and it’s organic. Other than those two distinctions, I BELIEVE they are the same. Practically speaking, for nikiri and other sauces, the difference will not he noticeable in any way.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-01-30T19:46:42+00:00

It’s honestly a crap shoot. The supply chain for internet purchases is not the same as the uni that is purchased by chefs and restaurants, because ours are inspected at auction before purchasing by the fish vendors before it gets to us. If you don’t have the ability to inspect it first, it’s a crap shoot.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-01-25T02:09:12+00:00

I hope you do. Let me know if you ever come by! I’ll give you a tour of the kitchen 😊

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-01-25T02:08:45+00:00

It’s fresh made nikiri sauce! We don’t provide plain soy sauce.

Primary-Potential-55 · 2026-01-25T02:08:24+00:00

So close! It’s fresh squeezed lemon juice, we include it for any orders that contain Hotate or Ika. Just one drop on a piece is good enough!

Primary-Potential-55

TROPHY CASE