ShareThisBy BOB SYLVA
Sacramento Bee
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Ray Yamamoto, an American born in Japan, the son of a defiant "no no boy" from the Tule Lake, Calif. internment camp, set foot in his ancestral homeland for the first time in 1980. He was 18 years old. He spoke no English. He had no clue that sushi would be his destiny.
Ray Yamamoto says his was a traditional Japanese upbringing. He had no cognizance of being American, and his parents spoke Japanese at home. "The only time my mother spoke English was when she was angry," says Yamamoto, laughing. "Then the English came out, and we knew we were in trouble!"
Ray was always fascinated by food. As a little boy, he would stand on a box so he could watch his mother prepare meals at the counter. In high school, he waited tables and washed dishes at a department store restaurant at the train station.
After high school, he decided he would visit his aunt and uncle, Junichi and Satsuki Yamamoto, who lived in Sacramento, Calif. Junichi Yamamoto had a lawn-care business. Ray thought he would stay for a year or two, go to school and learn some English.
Instead, finding a pearl in a scoop of rice, he claimed his birthright and never went back to Japan.
Shortly thereafter, he got a job at Aomi, a pioneering Japanese restaurant. And that's where Ray Yamamoto met Shigeru Tokita, who was a sushi chef at Aomi. "I told Shige that I wanted to be a chef someday," says Yamamoto. "He told me that he would hire me when he opened his own restaurant."
Shige Sushi debuted in 1984 in a strip mall, in an era when sushi was suspect, when the thought of swallowing raw fish caused many people to cringe. Yamamoto quietly, patiently, with head bowed and knife keen, in Japanese fashion but in America, learned the art of sushi from Tokita.
"Shige was a chef trained in Japan," says Yamamoto. "He was very strict. But I am who I am because of him."
Yamamoto, whose life is a wonder of paradox, of fortune and gratitude crafted from bitter circumstance, would go on to earn a degree of sushi fame and develop a loyal following. He became partners with Shige in 1996. In 2001, with partner Viengxay "Sai" Vongnalith, he opened Akebono in Granite Bay, Calif.
However, 20 years of working nights finally caught up with him. Last year, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, Yamamoto left Akebono and started a catering business. Suddenly, one of the city's most affable sushi chefs was missing from the scene.
Now, Yamamoto is back. He's working at Oto's Marketplace, a store that offers an array of Japanese products, fish, meat, takeout, plus packaged and made-to-order sushi to go. Yamamoto, head down, knife sharp, fingers flying, is a one-man show, a veritable sushi machine, with little time for chitchat.
"Everybody knows Ray," says Russell Oto, whose parents, Ted and Mollie Oto, started Oto's Japan Foods in 1984. "We wanted to have a sushi bar in the store. And we wanted someone with a name. And his sushi is different than what you would expect to get in a store."
On a recent Saturday morning at Oto's, a crowd of people, including a few feisty, older Japanese women, are swarming the sushi counter. Helping Yamamoto handle the crush is his wife, Chiemi. Soon, their 15-year-old son, Alex, will lend a hand, too.
Ray left Akebono because he wanted to spend more time with his family. By now, his family would probably like to spend a little less time with Ray.
