Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

magpictures.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#31

Post by Cushman »

pheon wrote: post #4

that the full menu costs $300 and you will finish in 30min. also reviews of the his sons restaurant say they get angry if you dont eat everything...

Not eating one piece of a $300 sushi meal would be like throwing out a whole plate at a pretty fancy restaurant... lots of chefs would be upset by that.

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#32

Post by hboon »

chnx wrote: post #11
siglesias wrote: post #7

For the uninitiated, the subtext of this movie is pondering whether Jiro's son Yoshikazu will be able to successfully take over the restaurant when Jiro retires. It's the age old question of what does it take for apprentice to finally surpass the master; who is a worthy successor to the master, etc. This is particularly relevant because the valley's succession story du jour is Apple and whether Tim Cook et al can tak…

Near the end of the documentary it is said by Jiro that his son (Yoshikazu) was the one making the sushi when it was being graded for the three Michelin stars and that being the head chef is the easy job because all the hard preparation work is done by the people under him. I think this somewhat applies to Apple as well — while Jobs was an excellent curator of sorts, he was supported by excellent people like Sir Jona…

I thought Yoshikazu was referring to the time when one of their apprentice visited the shop. Yoshikazu asked him who was the chef, was it Jiro, and the apprentice said "you".

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#33

Post by danielford »

The most memorable part of the movie for me was when the interviewer asked Jiro what it takes to be a master of your craft. He started off mumbling standard old-man stuff about hard work, and then he mentioned something I've never heard before, that you should never complain about your job.

I was thinking about this in the context of my teaching. In general teachers complain about their students three times as much as students complain about their teachers. Here's an example, take a look at the Chronicle of Higher Education's forum on teaching:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?board=25.0

The overwhelming majority of the activity there consists of complaints about students, with "the thread of teaching despair" currently at 447 pages. There are even entire websites devoted to the practice, like College Misery.

It's not like I've never vented about my job, but I've also always been a bit uneasy with the practice. After reflecting a bit, I think it's because time focused on what other people are doing wrong isn't spent figuring out what you should be doing right.

So as an experiment I'm going to force myself not to complain about any aspect of my job during the coming semester. If I'm happier and better at my craft by the end I'll adopt it as a long-term practice.

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#35

Post by dfriedmn »

staunch wrote: post #21

One could probably make 100,000 more documentaries approximately identical to this one at other family owned businesses. The only thing particularly unique about this place is that it came to the attention of Michelin and then a documentarian. I don't mean that as a knock against Jiro's place at all, I just think the filmmaker overplayed the story. That and the combination of Japan and sushi made the situation seem e…

Sometimes it's not about being unique or being the hardest-working in the world. A well-told human story can often inspire.

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#36

Post by zampano »

staunch wrote: post #21

One could probably make 100,000 more documentaries approximately identical to this one at other family owned businesses. The only thing particularly unique about this place is that it came to the attention of Michelin and then a documentarian. I don't mean that as a knock against Jiro's place at all, I just think the filmmaker overplayed the story. That and the combination of Japan and sushi made the situation seem e…

I'm not sure there are 100,000 family-owned businesses where the owner has 75 years+ experience, spends 15+ hours a day at work and takes their job so seriously. I've worked in kitchens that were highly-rated in their own cities, but they never approached the exacting all-around level of quality and detail of Jiro's restaurant. If you've ever worked in the food industry, you'd definitely know the care they take in all steps of their process blows away all but the best of the best restaurants and I believe the stars from Michelin reflect that.

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#37

Post by zampano »

dleibovic wrote: post #9

I'll be the dissenter here-- I was not a fan of the movie. It was a boring piece about a man obsessed to the point of craziness about sushi. His kids said to the mother: "Mommy, who is the strange man in our house?" The man was Jiro, their father. Is that the childhood you want your children to live? For me, the mastery of a craft is not worth this price.

That seems to have been a major problem in many Japanese families, to the point that the absentee father is kind of a trope in a lot of Japanese media. If any of you guys played Earthbound, you might remember that, while the mom was always at home, the dad only talked to you over the phone no matter what time of day it was. Just one more clever little thing from that game.

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#38

Post by zampano »

ebiester wrote: post #25
itmag wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese people get in trouble on the tip thing all the time in the US I think it's not just Japan. Here in Sweden, tipping is done at times but it's certainly not something mandatory. Please do educate me more on US tipping customs. I don't want to be a fool when I go there in future...

Simple: American service has a peculiar quirk in that servers are paid (in 95% of the country) around 2 dollars an hour, and are compensated in tips instead. At minimum, 15% is expected as a tip, even for bad service, and good service has an expectation of 20%. Truly bad service should be spoken to with the manager, rather than simply leaving without any tip. Note that servers expect you to tell them if something is…

I think the bit about talking to the manager is key here. Many of my friends are servers and customers will sometimes stiff them entirely on tips because they are upset about the quality of the food or some other transgression of the restaurant, but really this only affects the servers and hardly ever goes up the chain to the management. If you are having an issue, you need to talk to the manager or odds are it will never be corrected. Plus, when you've been sitting there an hour and your server might only have four tables, you could end up being a much larger portion of their tables that night than you realize. It's not uncommon to have little old ladies take over a table for a few hours drinking tea resulting in the server walking away with substantially below-average tips that night. I find the system completely unfair but have not yet found a way to protest it that wouldn't directly hurt the servers.

Re: Jiro Dreams of Sushi

#39

Post by stephencanon »

rdl wrote: post #16
pheon wrote: post #4

that the full menu costs $300 and you will finish in 30min. also reviews of the his sons restaurant say they get angry if you dont eat everything...

They ask you in advance if there is something you don't like/are allergic to (my friend ate there), which isn't normal for omakase actually (I hate Uni, so this is a concern for me).

In the US, you are usually asked if there's anything you don't eat when ordering omakase (unless the chef knows you, in which case it's not an issue). Is that unusual elsewhere?
Post reply on HN