I'm not making art, I'm making sushi

When I was a kid, I have two dreams. I want to be a baseball player. Hometown, Hiroshima, has a Japanese baseball franchise team called Hiroshima Carps. You know, and then I want to be a sushi chef. I want to make own restaurant - sushi restaurant.

Right after I graduated high school, I joined a sushi restaurant to learn how to make Japanese food. And then spent seven years. Then that time - that's enough. Then sushi restaurant - butchering fish and they make your body smell like fishy.

When I'm on the road, I wake up early and walk a lot. I'm very healthy. But when I come back home, I am more tempted by guilty pleasures, such as eating too many sweets and sleeping a lot.

New York is my, you know, second hometown.

A lot of people think Japanese food is difficult, a lot of work. But you don't have to buy the knife I have. You don't have to train as long as I have. You can do my cooking in your kitchen.

I buy soy sauce and flavor it five different ways: with sake, mirin, sugar, kombu and bonito flakes. I use them on lots of dishes at home.