Food review: Shiro maguro toro (albacore tuna)

Restaurant: Zushi Puzzle (San Francisco)
Food description: Raw slices of white albacore tuna toro sashimi
Food rating: 2 out of 10
Times ordered: 1

I took one look at this and immediately wanted to send it back. I was expecting it to look gorgeous like this. Instead, I was served this half-pink-half-brown, greasy-looking block of fish. I was already uneasy about having more albacore tuna after the first batch was old, but it was too late to cancel the order. I attempted to bite off a little piece to test it out, but there were such huge bands of tough tendony stuff that I couldn't bite through it. It was so bad, I chewed off what fish I could, and spit out the rest. Not the best thing, especially after just having my wisdom teeth out. And after all that work, the fish itself was nasty! It tasted even older than the regular albacore sashimi, and was so greasy it was sickening. There's a big difference between being fatty, and being straight up oily. It didn't matter anyway, because it was impossible to chew and was old. The whole situation was almost comical, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Whatever you do, never ever order this, please!!

Food review: Shiro maguro toro (albacore tuna)

Restaurant: Sushi Delight (San Francisco)
Food description: White tuna albacore toro nigiri sushi
Food rating: 8.5 out of 10
Times ordered: 2

This dish may not look like much, but it'll make you go mmm the whole time. Along with the bluefin toro, it's one of the best things at Sushi Delight, and some of the better toro I've had. Both of those items are specials, so they might not be available all the time. This toro is albacore, so its slightly less fatty than bluefin toro, but tastes pretty close. The texture is softer than bluefin toro so it still melts in your mouth nicely. I always try to prolong the experience of toro by eating it v e r y s l o w l y and hope more will magically appear, but it never does. Otherwise, I'd be sitting there for days gorging myself. Since we go to Sushi Delight regularly, the chef always hooks us up with something really fresh, this time it was the albacore toro, which was a special treat. I'm not sure if it's always this good, or if we're only getting it at its best, but you can ask the chef yourself what's really fresh and he'll recommend something good.