On Parnell Street, a trial for the sushi hotdog

On the counter of Sashimir Sushi, a small sign advertises its newest dish, the sushi hotdog.

It is this month’s special, says Izabele Gontijo, who has run the spot for five years.

She is sat at one of the tables in the restaurant, which is at the top of some steps in the back of a spacious unit with a big glass front on Parnell Street.

The space is a hub. It’s home, also, to Kiosk Brazil and Fabi’s Grill.

The decor is simple. A wall of yellow fairy lights and hanging green vines and a high ceiling with big visible pipes – and to one side, an open kitchen, where chef Marcio Prado is wiping over a surface now the lunch rush has passed.

They test dishes this way, rolling them out as specials, says Gontijo. “We see how it goes with the customers.”

In a while, they’ll consider if the sushi hotdog has made the cut, she says.

A meal in one

Behind the kitchen counter, Prado smushes a layer of rice onto a skin of seaweed that sits on a bamboo mat. He pipes on some cream cheese, and rolls it all up.

“Brazilians love cheese,” says Gontijo, watching on.

Prado dips the rice-roll in batter, coats it in panko crumbs and drops it in a fryer. As it bubbles in the hot oil, he preps the filling.

He speedily mixes cubes of salmon, sliced scallions, orange togarashi seasoning, red onions, and Japanese mayo.

The rice-roll is fried golden. Prado pulls it out and slices it open to show the glossy white cheese.

He lays the hearty hotdog onto a bed of grated carrots and cabbage, scoops the raw fresh salmon mix into the rice-roll, and drizzles it with Kewpie mayo and sweet and sticky teriyaki sauce.

Sushi hotdogs have made the current menu not just at Sashimir Sushi. Diners in Dublin can also find them at Wasabi Bar & Grill on Dorset Street Lower, where they were added a couple of years ago.

But they wouldn’t be a mainstay of Brazilian-style sushi. “To put in perspective, I never saw it before,” said João Grinspum Ferraz, a historian in São Paulo who writes about gastronomy.

Eric Funabashi, a historian and postdoctoral associate at Duke University who has researched the changing tastes of Japanese immigrants to Brazil, said by email that it is new to him too.

He has seen sushi burgers with rice shaped as a round bun and deep-fried, he says. But “I confess that deep-frying the rice in the shape of a hot dog bun is the first time”.

Brazilian-style sushi

Ferraz said it’s important to remember that Brazil has a large Japanese community. São Paulo is the biggest “Japanese city” outside of Japan, he says.

Fusion dishes like hotdog sushi aren’t the only kind of sushi in Brazil, says Ferraz, with emphasis.

Japanese traditions are taken seriously, he said. “We have some of the best sushi restaurants outside of Japan.”

That said, while he hadn’t heard of a sushi hotdog before, he has seen similar-ish dishes, he says.

Sushi became trendy in São Paulo in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he says. And, “as every trendy food, it starts to spread and get its variations from popular interpretation”.

Some of his friends, who are traditional Japanese chefs, aren’t fans, he says. “I know that they hate this.”

Online, a new dish is often greeted with riffs on Japan declaring war on Brazil. “It’s a meme already,” he says.

These dishes often spread through social media, says Ferraz. “With TikTok and Instagram, people start posting these things. It gets viral.”

That is where the idea came for a sushi hotdog at Sashimir Sushi, says Gontijo. They saw videos posted by restaurants in Brazil. “We just copied – or make it better,” she says.

Gontijo says she thinks that the sushi hotdog will stick around on the menu.

Ferraz says he isn’t sure about the staying power of some dishes that spread online these days.

There are dishes around today that stemmed from a kind of innovation and misinterpretation years ago, he says. “The use of the béchamel sauce from France, that became the croquettes in Barcelona and they deep-fried it with some filling.”

But it’s different now, he says, when you talk about the popular tradition appropriating from what is known.

Instagram and mass media mean it’s more about mass consumption, he says. “I don’t know how much this lasts.”

In Brazil, he sees dishes that trend for a while and disappear, he says.

Mexican paletas is one example, he says. Fried salmon skin is another, although that faded as access to ingredients changed, he says.

Chefs used to substitute fried salmon skin for eels – for unagi and anago, he says, but eels are more available now and so back on menus.

“So there is this back and forth between popular, mass culture and what you call traditional food,” he says.

Funabashi, the historian who has researched changing tastes and identity, says he thinks that these innovated dishes play another role.

“My opinion is that these creations help popularizing Japanese cuisine, or at least the names of Japanese dishes,” he says.

Some people might be uneasy about trying seasoned rice and raw fish, he says. “Deep-fried food, cream cheese, and varied sauces might be more inviting for first time eaters.”

Back on Parnell Street, Gontijo says she can imagine that traditional sushi chefs wouldn’t love the sushi hotdog. “We are literally taking the tradition away from it.”

But food is supposed to be fun, she says.

Future specials at the Parnell Street restaurant will likely involve sushi tacos and a sushi egg for Easter, she says. “You have to play with it, you know, you have to make different things.”