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BRIAN ORLOFFA Florida Aquarium fundraiser featuring competing sushi chefs goes along swimmingly except for a soy sauce shortage.
TAMPA --The Sushi Showdown fundraiser last week at the Florida Aquarium promised plenty of frivolity and food. Sushi plus sake, plum wine and beer all offered near the tanks of live fish.
But by 7:30, a mere 30 minutes into the evening, the nearly 500 attendees were left totally dry.
As in, sans soy sauce.
With the soy shortage upon them, guests were left to figure out how to add some kick to the California rolls. Was that salmon roll too bland? Why not compensate with an extra helping of wasabi?
Chefs were positively frantic. Amanda Skoba, the manager from Profusion at International Plaza, calmed the group that queued before her station. Her chef ran to the neighboring table but, alas, they were out, too.
"Nobody has any?" the chef asked. He scurried downstairs to check with others.
"I guess you can never have enough soy is the lesson I learned today," Skoba said.
Others were less fussy, but had different worries.
"Got anything cooked?" asked a woman standing in front of a station featuring salmon and tuna rolls.
A sushi lover's dream, the Sushi Showdown matched the Tampa Bay area's growing love for sushi - there are now about 70 sushi bars and restaurants according to the Tampa Bay Sushi Society - with a charitable cause: supporting the Florida Aquarium's youth education and veterinary programs. Never mind the venue, which could not have been more perfect.
Guests strolled through the exhibits with raw fish on napkins. The fishy smell, however, came from the tanks, not the hors d'oeuvres. Folks waiting to try some of Profusion's offering could run their hands through the touch tank.
If it seemed like a joke to eat sushi in an aquarium, then the aquarium's staff knows it succeeded. Some $14,000 was raised for the cause.
So, why did the board opt for a sushi event among the live fish?
"Well, that way you know the fish are fresh," joked Tom Hall, the aquarium's chairman. He surveyed some swimmers behind glass. "These fish look a little nervous. They're looking over at the chef that's right behind the counter. You can see it in their eyes, they're not completely comfortable with it.
"We felt that it would be sort of a fun event and no one's done anything like this before. There seems to be a lot of fans of sushi in the market, so we thought it would be fun to try. And we definitely did not use any of our own fish. No question about it."
Downstairs, in the main lobby, around 8, guests milled about, tasting less raw offerings, such as Todai's green tea-flavored cheesecake and Asian chicken salad. Todai's chef also made large, cone-shaped California rolls and guests chomped on its crispy nori (seaweed) wrapping. Todai's customers noshed on their sushi, flavored with . . . soy sauce.
Was the soy drought over?
Turns out that Todai hid its soy stash. Talk about competition. Todai's evening, however, did not go off without a hitch.
"You know what? We forgot wasabi and ginger," one of the chefs said.
Hall promised that he and the aquarium's board would get to the bottom of the mystery.
Could there be something fishy going on?
"If someone is taking our soy sauce and reselling it, we're going to find out," Hall said.
Elsewhere, chefs prepared their offerings for the evening's big, Iron Chef-esque competition. Each of the participants - Hillsborough restaurants Todai, Jackson's Bistro, Kobe, Profusion, Go Sushi Catering, Simply Sushi plus food service giant Sodexho - offered one platter to be judged on "taste, texture and presentation."
Some presentations ranged from the playful (including one with a batch of curvy caterpillar rolls complete with piped-on eyeballs) to artier fare (including the winning platter with its ornate flower formed from raw fish).
Winning chef Hoa Ly from Simply Sushi, a new takeout and delivery sushi spot on Harbour Island, called the competition fun, noting that many of the chefs were actually friends, having trained together.
"Tonight, pretty much I just put together a (platter) from my seven years of experience with sushi, things I've learned here and there," he said. "I don't know how I pulled it off.
Patrons schmoozed with friends; many were aquarium donors and regular patrons. Others who came said they enjoy sushi and the aquarium.
"I think this is fantastic," said Ariel Bearid of St. Petersburg. "I thought the idea with the sushi was a great thing because there's so much of that down here and so many people don't really know exactly what it is. It's like "ooh, raw fish!' But the fact that it's a benefit, too, to top it all off. I think that it's great," she said.
Hall called the event a success, though he's already figured out things to tweak.
"Next year," he said,"we're going to bring wheelbarrows full of soy sauce and place them at strategic locations throughout the building."
To contact Brian Orloff, e-mail borloff@sptimes.com