DESERT ZUSHI

So I was in the desert in Yucca Valley at the weekend, and I went to the Kimi Grill, which is where I always go, a pretty decent Japanese restaurant – and an AMAZINGLY decent Japanese restaurant considering that it’s in the desert in Yucca Valley.

When I’m there I look around the really quite huge dining room and it always seems to me that 90 percent of the people in the place are eating giant rolls like the one below, and in general I hate rolls with a hard and gem like flame.

And I’m not dissing anybody for having different tastes than me, but really guys, this place has excellent sashimi and sushi, and I don’t think there is any standard by which a dense cylinder of rice coated sticky glop is preferable to yellowtail or octopus.

I suppose I can’t be the only person who orders the raw fish, since they keep offering it, and I know I should be glad that it’s there at all, and the menus isn’t all monkey balls (yeah, I had them once), but obviously I’m in a minority.  Sometimes apparently the sushi comes in a boat – this pic and the couple above all come from Yelp.

Now, it so happens that there’s a curious and crammed and vaguely chaotic bookstore in Yucca Valley called The Sagebrush Press Bookstore.  It looks like it’s struggling, so I always buy something in the interests of supporting indie business, but in fact it’s looked that way for a very long time so I guess they’re doing something right.  And the owners do run a Baja Bug.

And there in the cookery book section was this: Japanese Cookbook (100 Favorite Japanese Recipes for Western Cooks) by Dr. Aya Kagawa.

It’s dated 1963 and was published by the Japan Travel Bureau, based in Tokyo.  The list of other titles at the back, tells us they published a lot of titles designed to explain the Japan to westerners – books on Japanese history, wood cuts, gardens, etiquette and so on, even one on Japanese humor.

The book is a fine little historic volume, interestingly and curiously illustrated – also interesting that in places (though not throughout) there are references to something called zushi. 

But my favorite recipe is titled “Small Birds Broiled Whole” – the list of ingredients consists chiefly of six small birds (along with sake, mirin, shoyu and powdered Japanese pepper).   An explanatory note tells the western cook to use “Quails in spring, the sparrow in autumn, the wild dove in winter, etc).” It’s the “etc” that seems especially mysterious and somehow threatening.  Do they mean robins, humming birds, the lesser goldfinch, budgerigars?  There’s no illustration of the end result, though the book does contain this very fine ad on its last page:

IT'S A DRY HEAT

Things are changing in the old Mojave desert, especially in Yucca Valley, but maybe we knew that already. Hell, I’ve been going there long enough that I remember when the food options were pretty much limited to a Sizzler and a gas station hot dog.  Now there’s fine, or at least hipsterish, dining. Up in Flamingo Heights there’s now La Copine Kitchen serving beignets and flax and whey English muffins but I wasn’t feeling quite strong enough for that.

Parry and Harriet’s in Pioneertown remains my idea of a good time in the desert (that's Harriet and Pappy above).  I remember the first time I went there, 20 some years ago. I saw all the pickup trucks and bikes parked outside and thought it looked kind of scary, but I braved it and went in, and of course it was just fine.   I seem to recall I had a steak sandwich and quite a few beers.  It felt good – and there was a band playing that had a kickass lead guitarist.  There often is.  This is Giant Sand with Pappy and Harriet's as a backdrop.

 Returning there this weekend for an early Saturday lunch with a couple of Anglo-Dutch pals who are driving across the States in a rented RV, there were more bikes and bikers there than I’d ever seen, and it wasn’t even noon.  I guess the boys were having their brunch-time brews before hitting the road.  Before we were settled and served, the place had emptied out.

The Pappy and Harriet menu featured, would you believe (well yes, you probably would), kale salad.  I didn’t order it, obviously.  I had the Desert Burger, which you see here. (That stuff on the plate that looks like an explosions of cheese and fries, is in fact cheese fries.)

 There was no band playing at that time of day, though there was a gently decaying taxidermy moose right above our heads:

And there is the wall of fame, photographs of musicians who’ve passed through the place at one time or another.  There’s Peaches and Robert Plant – side by side but in separate frames – something symbolic in that, no doubt.

But the most impressive change in recent years in Yucca Valley has been the arrival of the Kimi Grill, an honest to goodness good quality Japanese restaurant, attached to the Travelodge motel on the west end of town.

The sushi looked like this – the squid with caviar was my favorite:

The sashimi looked like this – the salmon was the knock out:

I think they get through a lot of flowers.  And of course you may ask yourself, how does a restaurant in the middle of the desert get sushi-grade fish?  And I suppose the answer is they get it the same way that restaurants NOT in the desert get their sushi-grade fish.  I think we all know by now that freshness is no virtue whatsoever when it comes to sushi.

Elsewhere, only the very smallest change has affected the Route 62 Diner, which is now Carla’s Route 62 Diner.  Décor and menu remain the same, the latter featuring dishes named after rock and roll stars.  I had the corned beef hash and scrambled egg – pretty standard diner fare, but I felt better for knowing it was named the Buddy Holly.

Wisest to avoid the Chubby Checker, I thought.