[TalnSG]

Well, I have easten sushi in several restaurants in Houston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and several other places along all three U.S. coasts so I have a slightly wider perspective than either of you may have.

From what I have seen the artistic and experienced itamae are almost all at least in their mid 30s and most much older. Whether Yuujiro was referring to this class of professional or all sushi chefs, I cannot say, but his comment hold true with those I would deem professional itamae, as opposed to simply a "head sushi chef". Yes there are dedicated and inspired chef coming up through the ranks, but they are rarely without supervision and I have seen too many of them enduring what he described - limitation by owners or kitchen managers that impair the art for the sake of customer volume, notariety and their ledgers.

MMM is right that the field is considerably better, especially the farther north you go on the west coast. But I have also encountered some of the sloppiest, unimaginative and overly Americanized offerings in more restaurants there than in Texas. My feeling is that because of the volume of patrons and the availability of fish at lower cost, there are more restauranteurs that have opened for business simply for the cash flow the "sushi craze" provides - as in lots of less then discerning patrons filling up tables. Because of the size of the west coast market, there are more mediocre and poor example that are able to survive than in Texas.

Here in Texas the overhead is much higher to operate and the gap between knowledgeable customers and people just wanting to seem trendy is seems to be much wider. As a result, most restaurants that survive more than a year fall into one of two categories. They are (1) extremely good and run by dedicated adn talented itamae so that they attract the limited Japanese clientele available and the American sushi "afficionadoes"; or they are (2)the ones with flashy decor, lots of minimally trained staff focusing on volume production of cheap product, and ever changing attention-getting dishes that have less and less resemblance to sushi and more and more to gastronomic one-ups-manship. For satisfaction I eat #1 (almost exclusively), and for entertainment and curiosity I visit #2.