-A lot of people have stereotype
about food from the food truck. My main focus is to have
fresh quality seafood. The key to be a good sushi chef,
you need to be very patient. What I like about street
food is that there's no rules. I could be creative as I can,
always thinking about the next level of sushi. βͺβͺ [ Cellphone rings ] Okay, but answer the phone. Thank you for calling Yoshi's. I have an order for Macie. I don't know if I
pronounce it right. [ Laughs ] My name's Yoshimasa. My business name
is called a Yoshi's. So, I have been making sushi
for over 20 years now. When it comes to sushi,
I need to make sure that everything is super clean
because I sell raw fish. So I always take time,
extra care. The whole concept is to serve
restaurant quality sushi from the food truck. The menu that I serve here is including a lot of
traditional rolls, spicy tuna, California rolls,
salmon, avocado rolls. The specialty of my business
included the sea scallop. Two orders of scallop. The scallop that I use
comes from Hokkaido, north part of Japan. First I butterfly it,
and then open it and lightly seared
on one surface, one side,
and then making two new uniform and then dressed with
a homemade yuzu pepper marmalade and then finished
with a little bit of olive oil and then
the black charcoal salt. Salt is sold out. We don't have [indistinct]
[ Laughs ] The reason why I keep
the menu small is so that I just
prep enough seafood and I buy enough for the day. -Alright. -Good. Oh, that's nice. Nice. Pretty much I pick up
fish every day. Alright, thank you. Yeah, beautiful looking. Thank you.
-Got a little bit for you. -When I look up, like the belly and they check the thickness
of the, you know, right here, it's nice and thick,
it's nice and fatty. The fish I source here is mainly
from the company located in Vancouver,
Washington. I get salmon from Canada,
albacore from Northwest Oregon, scallop from the Hokkaido,
north part of Japan. The technique that I use at work is all traditional,
authentic way, but I always finish
with more towards fusion style. I use more local ingredients,
vegetables also. So now I'm going to make
lime green with salmon, which is the most
popular roll on the menu, Lime green roll
has sesame spinach, cucumbers, roasted pepper
and an avocado on top, and then you can add salmon,
if you like, but topped with ginger,
miso and the microgreens. I think of myself as a chef,
flexible and stubborn when it comes to food. I'm always willing to learn, always willing to
try something new. My background is so different
from any other chef that I'm always open
to new techniques. Knife I'm using,
this is the knife my dad gave me when I was 18 24 years ago. Like every time
I use this knife, which I use every day,
and yeah, reminds me of good memories
in my hometown. I was born in Tokyo, Japan, so I have been making sushi
for over 20 years now. My dad has been
doing his business as a sushi chef
for over 50 years. So when I was growing up, I never asked my dad
how to make sushi. There's always something there
that never made me interested. So after I graduated
from high school, I decided to move to the states
and then just to learn English. I just wanted to move
out of my hometown and see different world. First city I moved in
is called Ashland in Oregon. So I picked a city
so that I forced myself to speak English every day. There you go.
Have a good day. I'm going to make a tamago,
which is an egg omelet. It's a Japanese-style
omelet. Got bonito dashi broth
and sugar, and then cook in sake and mirin. I used to live in a dormitory. There was a cafeteria,
and then they have nothing but just hot dog, hamburgers. I love eating those food,
but not every single day. So I got tired of eating
the same food and ended up
just cooking for my own. So my mom sent me
the cooking books, and then just learned. If you're in a bad mood or if you're in a hurry,
I don't know why, but always reflects
to this type of work. So you can make perfect Tamago unless you're not
feeling perfect. After 10 months
living in Ashland, I decided to move
to Santa Barbara. I needed a job, so I found
one Japanese restaurant, and then that was the most
popular restaurant in town. So if I worked
in a restaurant, why not? I picked the best
restaurant in town. I lived in Santa Barbara
for four years, but I wanted to challenge
myself, learn something more, So I decided to move
to Los Angeles and I ended up working
in a Japanese restaurant. So, I met my wife.
She was a server. I was a sushi chef,
so it's a typical story, but that's when
we started dating. This, we are making
our layers of tamago. So it's the same process. It looks a lot easier
than you think. So when you do,
it's actually very, very hard. A lot of people say
if you don't know how to make good tamago,
you're not a good chef. So after I learn more skills
from other chefs in Los Angeles, I became more interested. So I decided to just do
this job for my living. Now I'm here in Portland,
Oregon. Alright. [Conversing in Japanese] Thank you. So the community here
is smaller than big cities, but there's always
a strong community that everyone cares
each other. I always feel like
very strong connections between myself, to the area,
which I really love. This is the one guest
that brought me all this stuff, stamps and everything. Like this,
the Pikachu, all those. The first time we came,
my wife suggested summer time. So it was beautiful,
not too hot. First year I moved, 2014
just rained so much, it rained. So basically she tricked me.
[ Laughs ] So, this is a salmon I just
picked up at Cascade Organic. I don't think our customer
realized how much work before -- that she's formed. I'll say just making food is the last 10 percent
of the work, so 90 percent I think
is all prep work. After I moved to Portland,
I only worked to one place. It's called a Bamboo Sushi. So, yeah, I started
as a sushi chef. I got promoted
to be like a manager. Basically what I did was make
the, like, training manuals and hiring chefs. And I realized myself
that for one year I didn't even use my knife. I just miss using knife. So this one I used to cut a
little bigger fish like salmon, and then this is
the sashimi knife I use. I asked my boss to demote me,
so I became just a sushi chef. When I said that to my boss,
he was very surprised. He thought I was out
of my mind or something. I was very happy
that I made the decision. So without making that decision,
I don't think I'm here now. It is a lot of work,
a lot of time involved, but I think it's very
rewarding, you know? Yeah, I love my job. So I walked in Bamboo
for almost five years. Once it hits fourth year, I started thinking about
doing my own business, and then I started
looking for options or choices
of what I could do. So but, you know,
opening a restaurant is a lot of money involved. So I came up the concept that, why not serving sushi
from the food truck? I have a order for Cody! I have a order for Cathy! And the way is maxing. [ Laughs ] So, owning a food truck
is a lot of work involved. Not only you need to be a chef, you have to deal
with the cashier. You do all the cleaning,
you do all the prepping. Alright. Thank you. So see you
at 5:00 o'clock tonight. I started February 2019. I have nothing else to do but watching YouTube
and Netflix. We watched like
four episodes a day. That's how slow it was. Even the first month was slow,
but it was just too soon to judge if I should quit
or not, so I was going to wait
at least a year till my business picks up. Yeah, I just kept working hard. Eater Portland wrote
an article about my business. That's when it became busy. For 5:00 o'clock tonight?
Okay. Would like to hear specials or you already know
what you like? Two Caesar salad and then one
special classic roll. Good, and then you can always
call ahead, place an order. Are you in a hurry or...?
-No, no, no. -We have some big orders.
-Okay, that's fine. -Yeah, yeah.
-Are you open? -We're sold out for lunch.
-Oh, you're sold out for lunch. -Yeah, and we'll be back open
at 4:00 for dinner. -Oh, okay.
-Alright, thank you. βͺβͺ Doing my own business, I walk average like 12 hours
to 14 hours a day, but every time I receive
good feedback from people. I was tired before,
but as soon as I hear that my hard work paid off,
yeah, makes me happy. βͺβͺ βͺβͺ
that's awesome. i wanna try this. seems like a cool dude.