How sushi gets from Japan to San Francisco

Photo: Andrew Faulk, Special To The Chronicle The catch is prepared by Sakasyu workers in a processing hub on the...

Chef Geoffrey Lee held up the head of kegani, a hairy red crab from Japan, giving his guests the opportunity to see the origins of the meat they were about to eat.

“This horsehair crab just came overnight from Tsukiji Market alive,” Lee said.

The four diners seated at Lee’s San Francisco sushi restaurant were in awe. One mouthed “wow” before she even tasted the sweet crab, served a single spoonful at a time. None had ever been to Japan, but that night each paid at least $145 to experience omakase — a tasting menu where Lee serves 18 or so courses of fish, most of which is flown in from Japan’s largest fish market, Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji.

“What we choose for the guests — I don’t want that quality to be compromised, so I only want to get the best, and the best seafood comes from Tsukiji Market,” said Lee, 33, co-owner and executive chef of Ju-Ni in the Western Addition.

“This isn’t just my opinion,” Lee said. “This has been proven for decades.”

On that night at Ju-Ni, each diner ate the crab in a single bite — a few seconds of bliss. But many were unaware how much work and how many people it took to make those few seconds possible.

TOKYO — In a dimly lit warehouse at Tsukiji Market in Tokyo, rows of tanks filled with crabs sit alongside chopping blocks where fish are quickly gutted. Here at Sakasyu, one of many companies within the larger market, 20 buyers out of a staff of 120 are tasked with finding the most delicious fish for clients. At 2 o’clock each morning, 34-year-old Jun Sakai, the company’s vice president, arrives at work, pacing past the stalls and dodging motorized carts carrying supplies. On a Monday in mid-May, among his tasks was completing an order from Ju-Ni of nine types of seafood, including kasugodai (baby snapper), kamasu (barracuda) — and kegani.

Sakai’s family business began in 1889, decades before the current Tsukiji Market existed. Back then, the market was located in Nihonbashi, Tokyo’s business district, until an earthquake destroyed it.

Sakasyu was one of the few large wholesale fish businesses to continue after that market closed. Sakai, a former consultant who is more fond of eating steaks and pizza than fish, said he joined his family’s business to help take it to the next level. Right now, 80 percent of his clients are supermarkets, with 95 percent of his overall customer base in Japan. Sakai believes there is room for the firm’s international business to grow, serving places like high-end restaurants in San Francisco.

“I think I can make our family business bigger and bigger, (a) worldwide business,” Sakai said.

It’s a delicate circle of trust among Bay Area diners to place their money behind chefs to bring them the highest quality fish; in turn, chefs trust their buyers across the ocean in Japan to find the best seafood at Tsukiji, where fish are snapped up through rapid auctions or careful negotiations.

Whether one eats quality fish at a good price depends on the nimble thinking of these buyers, who must evaluate the quality of the fish and its market value.

“Based off that, I win or lose for the day,” said Kengo Fujinami, 53, a buyer at Sakasyu who specializes in buying snapper through negotiation. Other buyers at Sakasyu buy fish through auctions, where quick finger gestures determine the winner.

That morning, the buyers got straight to work, each specializing in certain types of fish. On an upper floor of the market, buyers wearing hats with plastic cards labeling the wholesale companies they represent sat in bleachers facing two auctioneers going down a list of packages of sea urchin ready to be sold at around 5 a.m. By that hour, the buyers had already gone into a dedicated room to view the sea urchin and made a mental note of which packages to bid on.

Jobs at Tsukiji Market range from cleaning and transporting fish to bookkeeping and accounting. Jobs at Tsukiji Market range from cleaning and transporting fish to bookkeeping and accounting. Photo: Andrew Faulk, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Andrew Faulk, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close How sushi gets from Japan to San Francisco 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

The lore surrounding Tsukiji Market, launched in 1935, is almost surreal. It is the world’s biggest fish market, with more than $3.96 billion worth of seafood sold in its last fiscal year. Each year, tens of thousands of tourists visit the market, a labyrinth of stalls in the heart of Tokyo, to get a glimpse of the large tuna displayed on wooden pallets and auctioned at dawn. The market draws Japanese workers passionate about fish, with 555 marine wholesale companies that compete for the business of supermarkets and restaurants worldwide — including Ju-Ni and many others in San Francisco.

Like any market, prices can fluctuate, but what fish sells for at Tsukiji reverberates through the supply chain of fish at supermarkets and restaurants — and ultimately affects the pocketbooks of consumers. In January, the Associated Press reported a 466-pound bluefin tuna at auction fetched more than $600,000.

One “can buy at the highest price in the world, so high-quality fish are gathered from around the world,” said Jun Sakai.

Tsukiji has been in the same location for more than 80 years, but plans by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to relocate the aging market farther from the city’s center has drawn backlash from businesses because of fear that the groundwater underneath the new facility in Toyosu is contaminated. The government says it will clean up the area, but despite those assurances, the Japan Times reported 70 percent of seafood wholesalers oppose the move. In August, a fire destroyed part of the current market where restaurants were located, but did not affect the wholesale business area.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government reiterated in June that it plans to move the existing fish market to Toyosu and keep the Tsukiji location as a food theme park. The government said in a statement that “the market’s aging facilities and cramped space are a serious problem,” making it hard to tackle issues like more advanced quality control. “The impact from earthquakes or other disasters is also a concern,” the government said.

Some workers at Tsukiji, including Mamoru Sakai (Jun Sakai’s father and Sakasyu’s president), prefer not to move to Toyosu. He said the structure at Toyosu could be problematic for customers who are used to Tsukiji. Theodore Bestor, author of “Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World,” said that at Toyosu, the space between stalls is narrower, and ramps for motorized carts to bring slippery tuna to different levels in the building is an accident waiting to happen.

“It was designed by bureaucrats who don’t understand how the market works,” Bestor said of the Toyosu facility.

But Jun Sakai has a more pragmatic take: “If the market moves, we move.”

Photo: Andrew Faulk, Special To The Chronicle A giant tuna bought at the morning auction at Tsukiji Market in...

The market has also been criticized for the role it plays in selling Pacific bluefin tuna, one of the most prized dishes at sushi restaurants across the globe. Without tracking where and how the fish are caught, some of the bluefin tuna sold could be captured illegally, said Jamie Gibbon, an officer with the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Tuna Conservation. Today’s bluefin tuna population is estimated to be just a fraction — 2.6 percent — of what it once was. Japan is the world’s largest consumer of the fish, and although many seafood advocacy groups, such as Monterey Bay Seafood Watch, have urged the public to stop eating it, it has not shown much improvement.

“If they keep fishing it as they are today,” said Gibbon, “there may be a chance in the future that it won’t exist.”

Each day that the market is open, Jun Sakai says Sakasyu buys 40,000 kilograms (nearly 90,000 pounds) of fish. The process of choosing which fish goes to which restaurant depends on the relationship between the wholesaler and the restaurant. Some buyers begin their day around 2 a.m. and don’t make it home until noon after they finish filing their paperwork for the day. Meanwhile, more and more San Francisco chefs and restaurateurs, like those at Ju-Ni, Akiko’s and Omakase, make a point to visit Tokyo and spend time with the businesses that send them fish from Tsukiji. Gifts for the people who make it happen might include Trader Joe’s cookies, cigarettes or a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

“Once they make that personal connection, they have more pride in the products they are selling,” said Ju-Ni’s Geoffrey Lee, adding that his restaurant spends about $5,000 a week on fish from Tsukiji. “They will put more effort in the sourcing.”

Sakasyu is just one of the businesses that Ju-Ni uses to get fish from Tsukiji Market. Sakasyu began selling directly to San Francisco restaurants last year, after a part-time chef at Sushi Ran in Sausalito named Yoshimichi Takahashi noticed that the quality of the fish coming from Tsukiji wasn’t up to snuff.

Takahashi said he was surprised when sardines and kasugodai (baby red snapper) that was bought at Tsukiji arrived at Sushi Ran with internal organs that were mushy — a sign that the fish was not fresh enough.

“I don’t want to handle this kind of fish,” Takahashi said. “Maybe it’s edible, but edible doesn’t mean good. If it’s not good, it tastes no good.”

Photo: Jun Sakai, Courtesy Of Sakasyu Buyers examine sea urchin up for auction at Tsukiji Market in Tokyo.

Before Takahashi moved to the Bay Area in 1985 to start his career as a sushi chef, he used to work in the tuna department for a wholesaler at Tsukiji. Takahashi believes part of the issue was that some of the businesses that restaurants like Sushi Ran were relying on as a link to at Tsukiji may have been buying the fish from other companies, resulting in slower shipments. By the time the fish arrived in San Francisco, it would no longer be fresh enough.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle At Ju-Ni in S.F.: Sea urchin is served in a spoon with fresh wasabi.

So Takahashi called a friend who introduced him to Sakai at Sakasyu and they decided to work together to sell directly to San Francisco restaurants, cutting out the middleman. Today there are about 15 San Francisco restaurants who use Sakasyu’s service, Takahashi said.

Downstairs at Tsukiji Market, Jun Sakai’s father, Mamoru, packed a live crab from Hokkaido in a foam box filled with wood chips to send to Ju-Ni. The crabs were purchased a few days before and Sakai monitored them in the tank, plucking out the one he deemed strong enough to survive the journey to San Francisco. Rubber boots protected his legs from the streams of fishy water circulating the floor in search of a drain.

Over the next few hours, the fish sought by Ju-Ni was carefully wrapped and placed in foam boxes, transported by the small roving carts that dart in and out of the market’s narrow passageways. If you’re not careful, accidents happen, Mamoru Sakai said. Loud noises from trucks and the bustling of activity drowned out conversation.

The packages for Ju-Ni were driven an hour to Narita International Airport and loaded onto a 10-hour flight to San Francisco. After the packages cleared customs, the fish was driven to a warehouse in San Francisco and brought to Ju-Ni the next day.

The fish itself cost Ju-Ni $300, but an additional $170 was tacked onto the price because of shipping, Sakai said.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle Geoffrey Lee (left), chef and co-owner of Ju-Ni restaurant in S.F.,...

On delivery days, Ju-Ni’s Lee usually arrives at the restaurant around 11:30 a.m. to inspect the quality of the fish upon its arrival. If the sea urchin packages are cloudy, for example, he sends it back. Over the course of a few hours, Lee and his staff will clean, scale and cut the fish. Some 24 lucky diners will feast on the fish that night.

While getting the best raw ingredients from places like Tsukiji is important, Lee says what distinguishes his restaurant from competitors is how he prepares and accentuates the flavor of the fish, such as curing, smoking or garnishing the fish.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle At Ju-Ni in S.F.: Baby barracuda with fresh green onions, ginger...

“That all comes down to technique and experience,” said Lee.

Lee didn’t intend to go into the restaurant business when he enrolled at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2003. His parents wanted him to be a computer engineer, and when Lee came to the realization that a career in coding was not for him, his parents stopped paying his rent. Lee’s financial lifeline was his $11-an-hour job grilling chicken and washing dishes at a sushi restaurant, and eventually those beginnings led him to pursue a career as a chef.

Last year, he opened Ju-Ni, which means “12” in Japanese, the total number of seats at the venue. And while he didn’t end up getting employed at Google or Facebook, people in the tech industry pay top dollar to dine at his restaurant.

Those diners rely on Lee to provide them with the best fish, and in turn, Lee places his trust in a complex network of buyers, auctioneers and fishermen on the other side of the ocean.

That food chain was far from the minds of the diners who were enjoying a long, colorful runway of sushi at Ju-Ni. Jazz played in the background as the diners sat on tall chairs and were served on a sleek wooden counter. Although some diners were curious to know the journey of the food, most were more fixated on the tastes and the experience.

“I love knowing where it came from, but if I didn’t, I would enjoy it just the same,” said diner Carrie Hultberg.

Nearby Matt Hoenecke squeezed a piece of sea urchin between chopsticks and downed the morsel in seconds. He said it was “good” and “traditional.” The 28-year-old software developer doesn’t have the experience of Sakasyu’s buyers, but Hoenecke and his girlfriend, Paty Guinea, can savor what tastes good and they plan to return to Ju-Ni.

“I feel bad eating it so quickly,” Guinea said.

Wendy Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. She traveled to Japan with the Jefferson Fellowships Program organized by the East-West Center, a nonprofit that aims to increase dialogue among the U.S., Pacific and Asian nations. Major funding for the fellowship was from the Freeman Foundation through the East-West Center. Lee also received $150 from the Asian American Journalists Association’s San Francisco chapter. Email: wlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thewendylee