PAST’S PERFECT SUSHI
There are many excellent things to order at Catch & Release, the current installation of chef Jason Neroni’s culinary work, in Marina del Rey. Neroni, who is about to open, or rather reopen, Venice’s Rose Café, is cooking Maine-inspired seafood as well as dishes that he’s been cooking for years, in New York, Portland, Ore., and Venice. His salmon tartare has been a signature dish for about a decade, a synthesis of raw fish, pine nuts and pickled mustard seeds, sometimes given an emulsification with a quail egg — kind of like a quick marine carbonara. You fork this up on grilled bread, because of course you do. It’s a simple dish, an easy dish to make. And it’s deceptively meaty, the way toro is at sushi bars, with the egg, if you use one, making the dish seem more like beef tartare than, say, poke. But it’s the mustard seeds that make this dish, steeped in balsamic vinegar and simple syrup, then folded into the fish. They pop like caviar. Since the recipe makes more than you’ll need, imagine what you can do with the seeds. A cocktail, maybe dinner rolls. Although more of Neroni’s tartare wouldn’t be a bad idea either.