While we were enjoying Happy Hour at DUNE by Laurent Tourondel, a restaurant at the base of Auberge Beach Residences & Spa, 2200 N Ocean Blvd, in Fort Lauderdale, a friend asked to try the “Crispy Tuna Nigiri — avocado, yuzu” ($10).▫️
If you happen to be seasoning, pressing, cooling, slicing and frying short grain rice, until its crispy golden brown, you’re likely making a variation of a nigiri dish. Short for the Japanese word “Nigirizushi,” which means “hand-pressed sushi,” you’ll usually get a small rectangular mound of rice topped with some raw fish.
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Native to China and Japan, yuzu is a citrus lemon that has an intense aromatic rind which maintains its tartness even at extreme cooking temperatures. We didn’t get any of those notes here. It was just an aioli-like mush layered atop of what was supposed to be “tuna” — but it sure didn’t look or taste like it. (The fish was unrecognizable in all senses of the word.)
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To be frank, I’ve never been a fan of gritty, stale-tasting rice. It’s never appealed to me. And it apparently didn’t work for anyone else, either, as it ended up scoring a “C+.” (I thought it deserved an “F,” but that’s just me.)
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This dish could sure use a tuna-up.
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