It was a quintessentially Seattle kind of day … grey, wet, windy. Despite a punctual arrival, I realized the restaurant was closed until 5 p.m. After some waiting, I was met with a warm whiff of briny fish and soy as I tried pushing my way through the fogged up, partially shut main door. Muffled voices followed, and a few minutes later, a man unlocked the door. It was Kenzo, Chef Shiro Kashiba’s son.

Kenzo welcomed us in with cups of unsweetened green tea. The restaurant had the appearance of a place that had been scrubbed clean. Chairs, perched on wooden tables, hung upside down. The sushi bar hummed with the sound of brisk knife-bearing hands preparing for the evening’s omakase. Small and clean, the white-tiled kitchen, with its steel countertops, lay right behind the sushi bar. Despite the hurried meeting of myriad instruments of magic — the pots, pans, buckets of fresh catch, steel trays of fried seafood and lotus roots, chattering knives, dexterous hands chopping green onions, mincing meat, slicing geoduck — the kitchen had an unusual visage of order.

Chef Shiro arrived right after my visit to his kitchen. Besides a black hat and winter jacket, Shiro Kashiba wore the same appearance of calm order on his face as his kitchen. I couldn’t tell from his mannerisms that he had an omakase meal scheduled in an hour. An omakase is a multi-course meal catalogued by the chef. The word “omakase,” as Shiro explained, translates to “let the chef do it.” The order in which the meal flows is based on serving lighter-tasting fish first, and building up the taste profile gradually with stronger flavors until the denouement.

Watching a customer eat is an intimate experience for both the chef and the customer. But Shiro believes observing the customer, and teaching them about Japanese food, are both crucial to the omakase experience.

“In wintertime we can get a lot of good sea urchin locally … small green one, and big purple one,” he explained. “First time, a customer is scared to eat urchin — who have never seen or eaten it, because food is a culture. It’s important we serve sea urchin — very important that American people discover the taste of urchin. Once they find the taste, they love it. I am so happy to find out that customers like it.”

As I listened to Shiro talk, I couldn’t help but steal a glance at his wrinkled hands and wonder at their relentless commitment to keeping the essence of Japan alive in a Western country. After all, wasn’t observing the customer eat a form of Japanese communion?

In her book, “Different Games, Different Rules,” Haru Yamada explains Japanese empathy as anticipating and taking care of another person’s wants — very disparate from American empathy that is expressed by giving another person the freedom of choice. By observing his customers eat and anticipating their needs and reactions, Shiro practices an aspect of his Japanese identity. Educating the average American customer, anxious about a new taste and texture of food, also means pushing the customer to discover and experience an identity and value-system without the travails of travel.

Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, a cultural anthropologist, notes that when members of a social group consume a particular kind of food, it becomes a part of the individual’s body and “functions as a metonym by being part of the self.” In Shiro’s case, authentic Japanese food, cooked and served with a Japanese sensibility, helps form a symbolic bond between the customer and Japan. In a figurative sense, the customer consumes Japan and makes it a part of her American consciousness.

This broader acceptance of the Japanese sensibility in the U.S. did not begin with Shiro. While the period around World War II saw a distrust of the Japanese in American media and the harrowing experience of Japanese American internment in the 1940s, the 1960s marked a remarkable evolution in the perception of Japan.

Coming to Seattle

Shiro moved to Seattle at a time when the exoticism of Japanese cuisine had suddenly begun finding favorable reviews in American press. U.S. troops stationed in Japan during postwar occupation returned to their country with positive experiences of Japanese culture. The frequency of air travel between U.S. and Japan furthered the cultural exposure.

Author Gil Asakawa observes how Americans returning from military bases in Japan during this time brought back a familiarity with Japanese dishes like sukiyaki, teriyaki and tempura. And the Japanese soy sauce manufacturer Kikkoman “demystified the use of soy sauce and made it safe for mainstream consumption” in America.

Scholar Makota Ohtsu notes this was also a “time of peak presence of Japanese corporations in the United States.”

In 1966, Shiro arrived in a city that had already hosted the World Fair at its brand-new Space Needle, had seen Boeing flourish, experienced the planning of Interstate 5, felt the footfall of civil rights advocates march its streets, and noticed a wave of an anti-war sentiment owing to the war in Vietnam.

What could have been a better time for a young Japanese immigrant with a strong work ethic and head full of dreams to introduce Seattle to its first sushi bar? Shiro appeared in Seattle at the time when the city was ready to make Japan a part of its diverse consciousness.

The 57-year-old snapshots of the city from Shiro’s memory include an unfinished Interstate 5, a welcome ride from SeaTac airport to a local Japanese-run restaurant by his first employer, and the delightful taste of apple pie served with two scoops of ice cream.

Since he immigrated with a student visa, Shiro went to school at Seattle Community College during part of the day and worked as a cook in the other half of the day. The first two restaurants where Shiro worked, Tanaka and Maneki, were in the International District of the city. It was in Tanaka that he first discovered the local geoduck when a second-generation Japanese man brought it to the restaurant. The geoduck reminded Shiro of the mirugai clam in Japan, and upon trying it, he realized that geoduck would be the perfect choice for sashimi.

“No one was serving geoduck that time,” he reminisced. “People would go to the beach and dig for geoduck like razor-clams. It was hard work to get it. Now, it is big business to catch geoduck. There’s big money in it as there are exports to Oriental countries from Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Canada.”

His customers during this time were mostly from Japan who worked for shipping companies and banks. There were also some American customers who either worked for Boeing or visited Japan on trips through their company. Shiro recounts how there were no sushi bars in the city at this time. He served sushi directly from the kitchen, until he opened the first traditional Tokyo-style sushi counter of the city at Maneki restaurant in the 1970s.

The journey from a restaurant employee to a chef was long, yet rewarding. Shiro Kashiba went on to run his own restaurants and mentor several sushi chefs in the city as a pioneer of Edomae-sushi in the Pacific Northwest. The word “Edomae” comes from “Edo,” which means Tokyo.

According to Shiro, what makes his food authentically Japanese is seasonality and the use of key Japanese ingredients. The insistence on seasonality comes from the Japanese “Washoku” approach to food. Author Elizabeth Andoh describes Washoku as “selecting ingredients at their peak of seasonal flavor, choosing locally available foods … appealing to and engaging all the senses.”

I found traces of the Washoku philosophy in Shiro’s composed excitement for fresh, in-season, local ingredients as he remarked: “The freshness of geoduck is the most important. Some retailers put geoduck in a tank, but after three to four days, the geoduck starts to get a very strong smell. This is not good for eating. Geoduck must be served fresh when the smell and sweetness of the meat is perfect. Also, we can get ocean smelt in spring and summer time, and the beautiful pine mushroom locally. Lots of customers don’t know about it, but once they try, they cannot forget the taste.”

Intrigued by Shiro’s eagerness at the use of seasonal ingredients, I couldn’t help but ask him how he maintains the authenticity of Japanese taste despite the use of local products.

“That is by using Japanese spices and ingredients like miso, soy sauce. We use a lot of sake for our cooking too,” Shiro said. Even salt is very different. “We get some of these materials from Japan, now lots of companies sell these in the U.S.”

Authors Ichijo and Ranta, in their book “Food, National Identity and Nationalism,” observe how the Japanese “sensitivity to the season implies being in harmony with one’s environment.” On that note, Shiro’s act of blending local produce with authentically Japanese ingredients symbolizes a harmonization of the West and the East.

I looked down at my watch and realized it was time for Shiro’s omakase ritual.

“One last question, Shiro San. You’re 82, and you have already perfected the art of sushi. What motivates you to still show up at the restaurant?”

Shiro chuckled at my comment on perfection, humbly dismissed the possibility of achieving perfection, and said: “I want to keep doing this before I die. Sometimes, physically I may feel a problem, but still I worry about my work because I like to do it. Young people must find out what they like to do.”

With my cup of tea empty and mind full, I headed back to tell you the story of a Japanese immigrant’s love for food and a gorgeous Emerald City.

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Dr. Jayendrina “Jay” Singha Ray’s research interests include postcolonial studies, spatial literary studies, British literature, and rhetoric and composition. Prior to teaching in the U.S., she worked as an editor with Routledge and taught English at colleges in India. She is a resident of Kirkland, Washington.