Posted by Casson on Apr 24, 2009 in
News and Announcements 
The good folks at the Vancouver Aquarium have been gracious enough to invite me to speak at their auditorium tomorrow at 11:00 am. A book signing at the gift shop will follow.
I’m doubly excited about this opportunity as we’ve had quite a bit of sustainability-related buzz here in Vancouver over the last couple of days with the release of the SeaChoice wallet guide. Zen restaurant becoming the first Japanese Ocean Wise partner has also stoked the fires and has people talking.
The Vancouver Aquarium is a lovely facility, especially as it is situated in breathtaking Stanley Park. I haven’t been there for quite a while… but I do recall spending a night at the Aquarium as part of some sort of children’s marine biology camp when I was very young. We slept in a room where we could see beluga whales through a thick glass pane. Someone wheeled in a TV and played “The Little Mermaid” on VHS. We got to watch the curators feed some of the fish. I met an octopus.
I think in a lot of ways, it’s those kind of experiences that help to activate our nascent environmentalism. When we have those all too rare opportunities to make visual and kinesthetic connections with nature and with life, it helps us understand that we are not alone.
Anyhow, I’m rambling. Presentation and signing tomorrow, Vancouver Aquarium, 11 am. Hope to see you there.
Tags: aquarium, ocean wise, seachoice, signing, tour, vancouver, zen
Standing with suzuki: Councilwoman Trish Kenz, Jay Ritchlin of the David Suzuki Foundation, Chef Nobu Ochi, Mike McDermid of the Vancouver Aquarium, and myself. The guest of honor is a farmed striped bass.
The event yesterday at Zen restaurant in West Vancouver was, in my opinion, a good way to jumpstart sustainability awareness in the local sushi industry. There’s a tremendous number of sushi restaurants here in the Vancouver area, and it’s good to see that Chef Nobu Ochi and his staff are committed to moving in this direction, as this kind of effort can prove a model for other restaurateurs in the area. That being said, Zen is not a sustainable sushi restaurant. Not yet. The menu still offers tako, hokkigai, and hamachi, and who knows how the yellowfin tuna is being caught or where it’s from.
Chef Ochi, however, does not make any false claims about this. He is not in any way attempting to fool the media or the consumer public into thinking that his restaurant has made more progress than it actually has. “If we had to go fully sustainable at once, we could never do it,” he told me yesterday. “We need to take these steps and see how our customers react.”
- Woot! I’m outta here!
This is a fair point and I applaud him for doing what he has already done — Zen has eliminated all unsustainable whitefish (karei and others) from its menu. Ochi will not serve bluefin, and I haven’t managed to find unagi on the menu either. In my eyes, these are laudable qualities and certainly differentiate Zen from most run-of-the-mill sushi spots that I’ve encountered.
There is a difference between starting a sustainable sushi restaurant from scratch, and changing an existing restaurant into a sustainable one. Chefs are concerned about alienating their current clientele through the removal of long-standing menu favorites. Distribution and sourcing, too, becomes an issue, as a menu shake-up demands going back to the drawing board with one’s purveyors and drafting a new plan to acquire sustainable and traceable product. This is not an easy thing to do.
So Chef Ochi has a point, and I don’t disagree with him. It is important to allow restaurants to take the steps that they are able to take. If we require an immediate and total jump to sustainability, we will indeed scare off a number of curious chefs that are not yet comfortable with such a leap.
But.
This cannot be allowed to get in the way of the message that fully sustainable sushi is not only possible, but necessary. It exists, and restaurants like Tataki Sushi Bar in San Francisco and Bamboo Sushi in Portland can prove it. Bamboo is a great example, as it was not opened as a sustainable sushi restaurant but actually upgraded into one from a pre-existing unsustainable condition. This is a great model for restaurants like Zen.
Sustainability is a journey, not a place. This isn’t about about getting a restaurant to a particular point, labeling it “sustainable,” and setting the menu in stone. A sustainable restaurant has to be dynamic — continually innovative, responsive to the seasons, and accepting of the changes that our planet is undergoing. The desire for a static solution to this issue is unfortunately unrealistic.
So yes, it’s good that these steps were taken. And I am happy to have been involved. But we cannot allow this kind of progress to be considered to be “enough.” Chef Ochi knows that, though, and seems open to continual improvement. So cheers to him, and cheers to the Zen team — and I look forward to watching this restaurant evolve.
Tags: nobu, oceanwise, ochi, seachoice, vancouver, zen
The unflagging efforts of the stellar team at Seachoice, a coalition of five Canadian conservation organizations, have paid off in the creation of the new Seachoice sushi card. This excellent wallet-sized consumer guide highlights sustainable choices and identifies less positive options, which it differentiates via the tried-and-true red/yellow/green system employed in Sustainable Sushi and by the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program.
The primary author of this card, Shauna MacKinnon of the Living Oceans Society (a British Columbian NGO forming one of the legs of the SeaChoice pentapod), worked hand-in-hand with both Canadian and American scientists, conservation organizations, and industry representatives to compile a thorough account of the seafood options that are often found at any given sushi bar north of the Peace Arch. The final culmination of this admirable task will take place on April 22nd at Zen, an upscale Japanese restaurant in West Vancouver, when the card is launched publicly. A simultaneous introduction of the sushi card will occur in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and will be manned by SeaChoice representative Rob Johnson with support from the Ecology Action Centre, the Maritime piece of the SeaChoice puzzle.
This event also marks the induction of Zen into the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise program, a voluntary restaurant quasi-certification system wherein participating restaurants use the Ocean Wise logo to indicate sustainable options on their menu. Zen will be the first Japanese restaurant to join Ocean Wise.
I’m thrilled to see another sushi restaurant getting on the sustainability train. To add to my excitement, I’ve been asked to speak for a few minutes at Zen about sustainability in sushi. My only worry is this: how sustainable is Zen going to be, exactly? I still haven’t seen a copy of the menu. I don’t know if they plan to eliminate unsustainable products permanently, or just for the day. So until I have a few minutes with Zen’s chef, Nobu Ochi, I’m forced to withhold judgment on the veracity of his efforts towards sustainable seafood. I’ll let you know what I find out.
Tags: launch, oceanwise, seachoice, sushi card, tour, vancouver, zen
The Vancouver Aquarium is a lovely facility, especially as it is situated in breathtaking Stanley Park. I haven’t been there for quite a while… but I do recall spending a night at the Aquarium as part of some sort of children’s marine biology camp when I was very young. We slept in a room where we could see beluga whales through a thick glass pane. Someone wheeled in a TV and played “The Little Mermaid” on VHS. We got to watch the curators feed some of the fish. I met an octopus.
