These days, it’s not unusual to go to a sushi restaurant in California — or anywhere, for that matter — and enjoy spicy tuna with crispy rice or yellowtail with jalapeño. But before the 1990s, those preparations simply didn’t exist.
Both now-ubiquitous dishes are the brainchild of Okinawa-born, Los Angeles-based sushi master Katsuya Uechi, who died this week at the age of 67. The news was first reported by Los Angeles Magazine, and the cause of death is currently unknown.
Uechi opened Sushi Katsu-ya in Studio City in 1997, part of the wave of restaurants that proliferated along the San Fernando Valley stretch known as Sushi Row. Those vital city blocks helped make sushi a household name in LA and across the country, and were also a hotbed of culinary innovation. Uechi’s influence and signature, elevated style of sushi came decades before Sugarfish delivery boxes became coveted on both coasts, and boxes of prepared rolls and nigiri lined refrigerated cases at grocery stores across the country…