|
Excecutive Chef, Bamboo Sushi, 310 S.E. 28th Ave, Portland, OR 97214
 Chef Brian started his culinary career in a butcher shop in Southern California. From there he went on to apprentice under several journeyman butchers. He then worked at a local fish restaurant and learned the fine art of disassembling a whole fish into precise portions. He soon realized that he had a passion for food and cooking. He moved to San Francisco and while working nights and weekends, attended the California Culinary Academy during the day.
After graduating from CCA he worked at several restaurants in the City honing his skills: the Farallon, Americano, Bacar, and Aqua where he became the Chef de Partie. Brian then went on to open The Original, a Portland, OR restaurant owned by the Sage Hospitality Group. He is now the Executive Chef at Bamboo Sushi, the first Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified, sustainable sushi restaurant in the country, second in the world.
 Bamboo Sushi
Cuisine: Certified Sustainable Sushi/Contemporary Japanese
Hours: 4:30-10pm Dinner 7 nights/week, 4:30-6pm M-F Happy Hour
Reservations: 503-232-5255
Interview with Chef Brian
CN: What inspired you to become a chef?
Chef Brian: Come to find out I am a bit of a people pleaser. I started experimenting with cooking as a teenager and found out girls really liked my cooking. An innate ability of mine is to maximize everything I choose to participate in. That said, when I focus my time and energy on a certain activity (such as cooking) I put a much greater amount of energy into it than the average person.
CN: What do you like most about being a chef?
Chef Brian: Food, people, travel, the excitement of the kitchen, and the publicity is a rush. Being a leader of creating dishes for a cuisine that is relatively young gives me the feeling of being a pioneer. What I create today will be copied by many, will travel the globe and might even spark up a new cuisine of its own. I am very competitive. To see a line out the door night after night and get feedback such as “that was the best meal of my life” is my way of winning. I also love a hard day’s work and to master what I do. It’s very fulfilling.
CN: What foods do you enjoy cooking?
Chef Brian: In my circle and region I am known for what I can do with anything with fins. However, I love cooking eggs, pizza, rustic Italian, meals straight from the garden, molecular (where it fits), Spanish, and Japanese. I especially love designing tasting menus for a special occasion or lady friend. Basically I love to cook everything!
CN: CHEFnews.com – “Green News That Really Cooks” is all about sustainably minded chefs and sustainable food issues. Do you consider yourself to be a sustainably minded chef?
Chef Brian: Being the chef at the first certified sustainable sushi restaurant in the country you should hope so, yes. 
CN: One of our objectives in featuring chefs, who support the green food movement, is to bring greater awareness about the state of our food resources and the state of our planet. What part of the sustainable food movement are you most passionate about?
Chef Brian: Three parts:
1. Securing more marine protective habitats so fish can re-populate the ocean 400% faster in those areas (Bamboo owns one off the coast of the Bahamas that is four times the size of all five boroughs of New York City.) We literally put more fish back into the ocean than we use and that’s sustainable. 
2. Shedding a light on our carbon footprint. There are many misconceptions such as “always buy fresh.” Hopefully, one day Food Network chefs will understand that the best quality and most sustainable fish they can eat is one that has been caught in its peak season, pressure bled, deep-frozen on the spot, and then thawed out very carefully.
A general guideline when buying fish: Fresh wild fish takes 10 times more carbon to transport than frozen. Farm-raised fish generally uses much less carbon since there is no fleet of fishing boats scouring the waters.
3. Farm raised fish. Good? Bad? Necessary? Yes, yes and yes. Aquaculture has come a long way in the past ten years. We are seeing an increase in different methods that claim to be sustainable. Personally, I am very careful to claim anything sustainable, however, a football field sized mesh pod deep under the surface of the ocean 8 miles off the coast of Panama containing thousands of test tube hatched Copia is pretty freaking cool! There are many styles of aquaculture from closed land circulating tanks to open water net penning. In my opinion there are good and bad ways to manage aquaculture.
What do we do!! Don’t panic - there is a cure for all of this. Third party certifiers such as the Marine Stewardship Council, as well as educational tools such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Guide make the choices easier. They take into account the effects of a certain fishery on the environment, fish population, pollutants, and carbon footprints. This makes sourcing the right sea products easier for all of us.
CN: Do you support or are you a member of a particular organization or project that has as its mission to promote healthy eating and environmentally responsible practices?
Chef Brian: Marine Stewardship Council, Monterrey Bay Aquarium (we work on their sushi guide with them), Green Restaurant Association, Salmon Nation, Seafood Choice Alliance, RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program, Kid Safe Seafood, The Nature Conservancy, Blue Ocean Institute, Eco trust and many more.
CN: Bamboo Sushi is a certified, sustainable sushi restaurant. I understand that there is a sushi side and a “hot” side of the restaurant, which is where you work. Can you tell me more about the “hot” side?
Chef Brian: We have two Executive chefs overseeing the restaurant(s), Jason Knowles is the Exec Sushi Chef and I am the Exec Kitchen Chef. Both of our roles are equally important and we work very well together as a team. I typically take the lead on creating flavors and new concepts. Jason sources products and manages to train high caliber sushi chefs in the ways of the blade.
At Bamboo Sushi you could have many different meal experiences. From the kitchen you can get a GQ magazine “best 5 dishes in America” or the Kobe burger that was chosen as “Best Burger in Portland” from Portland Monthly magazine, not to mention some ground breaking amazingly creative dishes my chefs are putting out behind the scenes. We also have an awesome dessert program and are pioneering a seafood charcuterie program.
We use the same artisan fishing boats for the bulk of our fish every year. On our website menu there is an interactive map that shows where each individual product was sourced. The Pacific Northwest is an ideal location for a chef.
CN: The interactive map is very cool!
CN: Your profile on CHEFnews.com is about you and Bamboo Sushi. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Chef Brian: Check out our website, Bamboosushi.com and come see us at our second location in NW Portland opening soon!
Chef's Recipe: Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Garlic Soy Butter
Click here to find out Chef Brian's Kitchen Wisdom Tip!
|
Spring is here! 
