SACRAMENTO, Calif. — This news probably doesn’t qualify as “Man Bites Dog!” or “Rockies Win the Pennant!” But the headline “U.S. Exports Rice to Japan!” caught my attention.
I had no idea, even when I flew into Sacramento three weeks ago for the start of the Tour of California bike race. On the outskirts of the city were fields that looked like a scene from “Apocalypse Now,” without the napalm, of course. The fields were under water as if suburban Sacramento were one giant rice paddy.
Turns out California is the No. 2 rice producer in the U.S., behind Arkansas. Last year California harvested 517,000 acres producing 4.3 billion pounds of rice. And 95 percent of California’s rice comes from the Sacramento Valley. Who cares? Well, Japan does. Apparently, the Japanese are crazy about California rice.
“They have a need for rice,” said Jim Morris, spokesman for the California Rice Commission. “They can’t produce enough of it. We grow a quality and consistency that’s desirable.”
California also ships to Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey and Jordan, but Japan is the No. 1 customer. For good reason. The average American eats 27 pounds of rice a year. That includes everything from sushi to cereal to Rice Krispies treats.
The average Japanese eats 135 pounds. That’s a lot of makizushi rolls.
If you go down to the Port of Sacramento, you can see battleship-sized freighters ready to haul some of the 317,000 tons of rice to Japan. That brings a tidy $174 million into California’s economy.
Unfortunately, I never saw it. Port security there is something along the lines of the North Korean navy.
Instead, I did the next best thing. I went down Sacramento’s J Street. J Street has so many sushi restaurants that if you added a hundred high-rises and a subway you could be in downtown Tokyo. There was only one problem.
I don’t like sushi.
I don’t get sushi. I never did. It’s rice with raw fish. Doesn’t cooking bring out the flavor in food? I didn’t eat sushi for the same reason I never fought my cat for her Fancy Feast. Maybe it was the raw sea urchin and quail egg wrapped in seaweed that I’d nearly coughed up at a sushi bar in Fresno. Or maybe it was the trip to Nebraska, where my salmon looked like road kill.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that all sushi tasted the same. Nevertheless, I was in a rice capital of the U.S. And, as they say, when in Sacramento . . .
I went to a hot new sushi bar called Kru, one of seven sushi bars on J Street. It’s run by a — let me get this straight — a Hong Kong-born, classically French-trained, Vietnamese- raised specialist in Japanese cuisine. Billy Ngo is 27 years old and came to Sacramento six months ago to open Kru.
Ngo (pronounced No) didn’t move here just because of the rice. However, it helped. Rice farmers personally deliver it to him.
“I love the rice here,” Ngo said. “It’s all organic and grown here locally. Organic fertilizers are used. There are no pesticides.”
There are two main kinds of rice in the world: Indica, which is a fluffier, longer- grain rice; and Japonica, which is stickier and perfect for sushi rice bowls, paella and rice balls. It’s what they grow in Sacramento.
It’s also what quickly turned me into a sushi fan.
I’ve looked at menus in rural Egypt that were less confusing than sushi menus. Why would anyone pay for something called an eel avocado roll? Or salmon skin? And have you ever had a raw sea urchin? Sitting on little individual plates, sushi always looks like gelatinous molds that escaped a set from the “Alien” series.
However, at Kru, I ordered an item off the long list of chef special rolls called Jade. It was lobster tempura, crayfish salad, lolla rosso lettuce, chives, avocado, cucumbers, mayonnaise, teriyaki and spicy cream sauces.
How they got all that into one tubular food is something only Ngo or a magician could explain. All I know is, it was remarkably tasty. The lobster and crayfish combined with the mayonnaise made it full- flavored and didn’t make you feel like a bear eating something it pulled out of a river. The rice made it. It was sticky, easy to eat, very much like the rice I loved in China.
My question for Ngo was, why in the world can’t I make rice this sticky? Why does the rice that comes out of my steamer always slide off my plate like greased capers?
First, use medium short- grain rice, particularly the Calrose brand. (Note Ngo’s cheap plug.) Second, he said, “Use a mixture of vinegar solution: Heat up a little vinegar and dissolve salt and sugar in it, then mix it with the rice.”
I tried it. It didn’t work. Good rice isn’t so simple to find. Just ask the Japanese.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
If you go
Kru, 2516 J. St., Sacramento, Calif., 916-551-1559,
