Year Released: 2015
Directed by: Anthony Lucero
Starring: Diana Elizabeth Torres, Yutaka Takeuche, Rodrigo Duarte Clark, Kaya Jade Aguirre
(Pg, 90 min.)
Genre: Comedy, drama

“A good sushi chef can pick up his knife and go anywhere he chooses, like a samurai warrior.” Sushi – Mia Detrick

A must see for foodies. Except that this modern day Cinderella is not trying to win the prince; she is trying to win the prize.

It might even convince the Sushi Shy, like Different Drummer herself, to try some of the delicacies we watch whipped on up screen. That puts me in the same camp as Juana’s father “Apa,” who would rather eat stale tacos than try her California rolls.

But we get ahead of ourselves. Juana (Diana Elizabeth Torres) is already quite a good chef. We see her expertly chopping vegetables in her own modest kitchen. Not for sushi, though. They are sautéed and put into a wonderful homemade Mexican breakfast she makes up for her Apa (Rodrigo Duarte Clark), albeit at the rather early hour of 4 AM.

Then off to the Fruit market in their iffy pickup to select just the right specimens before bringing them back to chop up and sell in their fruit cart.

All the while Juana’s daughter, little Lydia (Kaya Jade Aguirre), sleeps wearily in Juan’s arms or in a fold up chair while Juana and Apa work to chop up and season the fresh fruit.

Already we see Juana’s drive and integrity. Apa, a bit old and achy, tries to shoot reconstituted lime juice on the fruit. A big No No for Juana, who insists on the more labor-intensive real thing, fresh squeezed.

Their little fruit cart business is merely a sideline to supplement the part time jobs both have. We soon find the reason that Juana sets her alarm for 3:50 daily, then works her second shift a 6 PM cleaning in up in gym. It’s all to pay for Lydia’s schooling, but getting her little one up in the predawn darkness tells on the whole family.

A full time job and stability beckon when Juana sees a help wanted sign in a Sushi shop. She gets the interview and then the job from the owner’s wife when she proves her prowess, not in the kitchen, but at lifting the 50-pound rice bags that she will have to tote daily.

Yes, the job is full time with health benefits, but Juana is still in the back kitchen, toting in supplies from the dock, washing the dishes, and mopping up.

Then serendipity calls again. (The first time is was a robbery and a minor beat down that made Juana abandon the fruit cart, a strange sort of serendipity, but one that prodded her onward, nonetheless.)

This time it is a sudden rush at the sushi restaurant that opens another door. Aki (Yutaka Takeuche), the head sushi chef, is behind in orders and he asks Juana if she can chop up a few vegetables for him. She does so with such speed and agility that he takes her off dish washing immediately and puts her to work preparing food.

Thus begins Juana’s press to be a sushi chef herself, against the odds of even her loved ones.

“I want to be a sushi chef, not a sous chef.”

Apa misses the food she used to bring home from her days as kitchen staff in Mexican restaurants, shunning the sushi she now brings home.

But actually, at first Juana herself is a sushi skeptic, too, as we see in restaurant lunch scene at the Japanese restaurant. One of the perks of the job is the free lunch, all the employees gathering at the table, helping themselves to the delectable fare. Juana sits quietly, her plate empty, and Taki, who has already taken a liking to her, asks her why. She has already had some and didn’t like it.

But she has only had supermarket sushi, he tells her. Never the fresh variety. She tries it and is smitten, not only with the sushi, but Taki as well?

Further culture clashes follow. The tako Aki talks about is not Mexican taco, but an octopus. Then we have Juana trying to use chopsticks, and doing about as well as Different Drummer first fared on her many trips to Asia. Finally, Aki rescues her again.

“Just use you hands,” he suggests, and she does, scooping up a huge handful and swallowing it in one, messy bite. But the smile on her face is eloquent.

And of, course, there is the kitchen staff mispronouncing her name. “Jew Onna.” They call her that more times than most would tolerate until she finally, very politely corrects them.

Then Juana’s faltering attempts to cook sushi rice at home, a surprisingly difficult dish. that combines sugar, salt, and vinegar and must be mixed just so at a 45 degree angle. She does everything Taki tells her, but alas, it is a disaster, as her “Apa” tells his granddaughter.

“Go ahead and try it. It won’t kill you….right away.”

Yes, Juana is a pushy broad, not unlike the real Julia Child so delightfully portrayed in Julie and Julia as well as the young New Yorker Julie also pushing herself to try a foreign cuisine. Julia Child practices chopping onions all night long in a small French apartment, putting her husband in tears from the acrid aroma. But she keeps on until she can slice and dice with the best, even impressing the snobby French chef running Le Cordon Bleu cooking school there.

East Side Sushi, however, has a slightly different take than Tortilla Soup, where the gourmet Mexican chef cooks up fabulous fresh fare from his own culture, such as fresh huachinango (red snapper) steamed in a banana leaf over hot coals, peppers gathered garden fresh, then thrown naked onto white hot embers, and saffron colored soup that glistens beneath delicate squash blossoms.

Here, Juana looks beyond the Mexican fare for a new challenge and runs with it. And she speaks for many when she confronts the restaurant owner who has rejected her request to be a sushi chef:

“Behind every great restaurant here, there are great Latinos, in the back, in the kitchen, hidden, prepping the food and making you all look good,” she says, swallowing back tears. “Well, I don’t want to be in the back anymore.”

Here the film gets a bit preachy, but the main characters never let themselves become stereotypes, and their humanity and humor keep the film as delicious as their personal Mexican/Japanese fusion as well as that of the cuisine.

Another great foodie film to add to recent greats such as Delicious, not to mention the timeless classics Tortilla Soup and Julie and Julia, already mentioned, as well as such as Mostly Martha, Chef, Waitress, and The Hundred Foot Journey .

Forget your troubles and stream this fabulous film that is piquant, delicious, and funny all at once.

–Kathy Borich
🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

When Apa rejects the sushi Juana brings home from work, she decides on a bit of Mexican fusion to lure him in, using a little cilantro here, some hot poblano peppers there. Her famous Mayan Sun Rolls are a work of art:

By the end of East Side Sushi you’ll be ravenous. You need to find a sushi bar immediately, but what you’re really going to crave are fat, fresh-chile-swirled pinwheels of Juana’s Mayan Sun Rolls. –Patricia Uterman

But it is the Green Diablo Roll that she prepares in the Sushi Chef contest as her chosen feature dish, where she wears her mother’s scarf as a kind of battle gear.

Of course, “Diablo” come from the hot taste of the poblano pepper that replaces the usual nora, the green seaweed wrapper. We know how hot Mexican food can be to newcomers, as her sushi chef mentor and friend Aki reacts when Juan takes him on a culinary journey to sample all her favorite Mexican food cart delicacies.

From Different Drummer’s experience here in Tex Mex Austin, the best cure is milk, not water, which does nothing.

Green Diablo Roll

Sorry, you will have to settle for the You Tube version instead of a printed recipe. This is pretty good, but they gloss over the intricacies of sushi rice. After you watch East Side Sushi you will see how elusively delicate that creation can be.

Here are a few more Mexican Sushi Magical Mixes for you to explore

Finally, my grandson Jack is a super creative chef. He even coaxed his Meemaw (me) into having several of his spring rolls, made with translucent rice paper, vermicelli, finely chopped carrots, cucumber, and basil, topped by sliced avocado. Terrific!

He also makes a pretty mean miso as well.