From Los Angeles:
Sushi Girl
Let the Good Times Roll

By Kevin Schoeler

Perfect Rolls

If you could invite anyone to your next party, who would it be? Think about it for a few minutes. Before you answer, consider Nikki Gilbert. She is intelligent, attractive and interesting. She's worldly, friendly and grounded. You'll love her energy. And she makes great sushi. Even better, she'll teach you how to make sushi, too.

Nikki Gilbert, aka Sushi Girl, was born and raised in Venice, CA. To be fair, Sushi Girl is more the name of Gilbert's business—a private sushi making party company—than it is her alter ego. Nikki Gilbert is multi-dimensional. She was an Ethnic Studies major at UC Berkeley. In Japan she taught elementary school and served as cultural ambassador to the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program for three years. Back again in Venice, she studied at the first vocational school for sushi chefs—The California Sushi Academy. There were several restaurant jobs along the way, but all roads led her to sushi.

It's a Party

As Gilbert tells it, "All I wanted to do was learn how to make sushi. Once I learned, I thought I should teach." Always an ambassador, she felt that such a pursuit would be a "good bridge" between the Japanese and non-Japanese worlds. And that's where Sushi Girl comes in.

Sushi Girl offers private sushi-making parties ($55 per person/10 person minimum) at private homes as well as in corporate settings for team-building and social events. Gilbert arrives well-prepared with all ingredients and bamboo rolling mats. Participants supply only a cutting board, a sharp knife and a sense of humor. Gilbert shares her expertise and friendly instruction. Everybody has a good time. With Sushi Girl there's no pressure to be perfect, or fear of failure. The aim is to have fun and satisfy appetites with nigiri sushi, spicy tuna rolls, inside-out California rolls and hand rolls.

One of the first things you learn from Sushi Girl is that the word "sushi" has nothing to do with fish. It's vinegar ("su") and rice ("shi"). So that means your sushi can be Kosher or vegetarian. It can incorporate tame sea creatures like tuna or unagi (grilled fresh water eel with a sweet sauce), or the more esoteric uni (sea urchin) and saba (rich mackerel).

At Sushi Girl events, Gilbert spends about two hours with hands-on demonstrations, beginning with the most challenging technique. That would be making sushi-nori seaweed wrapped around a layer of rice, maybe filled with cucumber, or crabmeat and avocado for the ubiquitous California roll. This lesson can take 20 minutes. Next, she'll teach an inside-out California roll, where the rice and the nori are reversed. "Believe it or not," she says, "They're easier to roll." After that, hand rolls and nigiri sushi (fish or topping atop vinegared rice) seem like a cakewalk.

Law firms have discovered that Gilbert's sushi-making parties are successful icebreakers for summer associate events. Corporations bring her in for team-building. What about everyone else? Don't they know that Nikki Gilbert is the perfect party guest?

For more information about Sushi Girl's sushi-making parties, visit her website at www.thesushigirl.com or call 310-880-4010.

(Updated: 05/17/07 JW)