Anthony Bourdain Steered Clear Of This Type Of Sushi — And You Should Too

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Anthony Bourdain, chef, author, TV show host, and all-around food legend, amassed some solid opinions on foods he did not mess with. For example, Bourdain passionately hated the third slice of bread on a club sandwich, nor was he fond of a good weekend brunch. And he was also way ahead of his time when he revealed in his 2008 book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly," that he avoided bargain sushi, saying, "I can't imagine a better example of Things To Be Wary Of in the food department..."

As was so often the case, Bourdain wasn't wrong. Sushi can constitute the most elevated meal you've ever eaten — but only when the restaurant is taking exceptional care with high-quality ingredients. If an eatery is advertising discount sushi, that likely means the fish isn't quite fresh or might not be the best quality; hence why they're offering it at a lower price-point. Where that especially becomes an issue is if you're eating rolls with raw fish, which means the possibility of foodborne pathogens is enhanced (it's why raw sushi is overall one of the riskiest specials to order at restaurants).

It's not just the quality of the fish in discount sushi that you should be worried about, though that was enough to put off Anthony Bourdain from the type that might be sold at a discount. It could be that the fish the restaurant says you're getting isn't what it is at all. And the restaurant might not even be knowingly selling sushi with fraudulent fish; what seems to them like a great deal from a supplier could be purposely mislabelled seafood. But this is much less likely to occur in higher-end restaurants, where the head chef is assured of the fish's provenance, versus the type of eateries that would sell discount sushi to begin with.

But fish isn't the only ingredient you should be careful of when it comes to discount sushi, though it was Bourdain's main reason. Rice is also highly susceptible to bacterial growth, especially when it has been cooked, but then left to cool without being refrigerated for a few hours. It would be easy for kitchen cooks, in a restaurant busy thanks to its sushi specials, who might not be quite so well-trained in food safety, to make this mistake, inadvertently serving up activated Bacillus cereus with its two-for-the-price-of-one rolls.