Meet the Chef: Taro Arai of Mikuni Sushi

His name, loosely translated, means “the original wild-child” and that has directed his way around the sushi bar. Throwing traditional sushi making out the window, Chef Taro Arai of has found his recipe for success—no rules and give ‘em what they want.

How long have you been a sushi chef?

Since I was 15, so…27 years? When my family moved here from Japan my parents decided to open a restaurant. My father was a pastor and he was getting very little pay and we had to do something so we (my family) opened a sushi bar in Fair Oaks in 1987. We called it Mikuni which means "kingdom of God."  My dad said to me, "You’re going to make the sushi,” and I thought, ‘How do I learn?’ So I got books and studied those.  

Did you and your family anticipate the success you’ve had?

Not at all for the first several, five or so, years.  We lost a lot of money right away and we struggled big time. When we opened, I was only 17 and my parents didn’t speak English. My dad turned to me and said, “You’re going to run this.”

On a good day back then, we’d have 30 customers a day. At one point we couldn’t even buy fish. We were the only sushi bar in the whole world that didn’t have fish because we couldn’t afford it.

I used to go to school—I graduated from Oakmont—and beg my friends to come try sushi because it wasn’t popular then. Of course, now Oakmont has a Sushi Club, I’ve done talks for them and I have tears in my eyes because it’s so amazing.

But anyways, my dad told me he had a dream that we had 30,000 customers. I just said, “You’re crazy.” But as soon as he said that we started getting more customers, and the businesses around us started to close so we expanded and we started to get close to 1,000 customers.

We opened in Roseville, and then in 2003 we opened in Midtown and then Taro’s at Arden, Elk Grove, North Star, then Denver, Colorado and Davis. Now we have 1.8 million customers a year and we go through 52 tons of seafood every day.  

From 30 customers a day to that? It’s crazy. We have been number one in sushi for 13 years and I have only the people of Sacramento to thank. That’s why we do as many charitable events as we can; we have to give back to our community because if it weren’t for them we couldn’t have made it.  My title on my business cards is CDO, or Chief Dreaming Officer, because I’m going to keep dreaming. 

How do you come up with the rolls on your menu?

My nickname was “Mr. No Problem” because while I know the basics about sushi, I didn’t know all the rules and regulations of traditional sushi. The more you study, the more you learn about the rules of sushi—you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you don’t combine these things.

If you go to a traditional sushi bar and ask for more wasabi they’ll kick you out; they’re very traditional. I don’t have any of those rules. I’ll make anything that a customer wants.  One lady was having her birthday and her name was Marilyn and she said, “I like scallops and crab,” and we now call that the Marilyn Monroll.

Johnny, he was a dentist and he said, "I want eel and spicy tuna." I said, “Ooh what a combo, that’s not gonna work,” but I made it anyways and next thing I know the roll is selling and everyone is asking for it, so we named it the Spicy Johnny. Thank you, Johnny!

Most of the rolls are named after and created by our customers.  For rolls like the Fair Oaks, we originally started with #1, #2, #3 and that’s how we named our rolls, and the Fair Oaks was the #9. We had a new kitchen chef that kept breaking the shrimp tempura. So instead of throwing it away, I said let’s put it in a roll and serve it, and it became the biggest hit.  So we named it after where we were, on Fair Oaks. 

What to you makes good sushi? 

I truly believe if you give people what they want, it makes it good. OK, that and of course fresh fish, that’s a must. At some buffet places I don’t know where they got their fish, how it was handled or prepared and I don’t recommend eating there. But besides that, I’m trying to figure out “good sushi” all the time.

We just launched a recommendation menu where we’re trying to figure out what people are looking for, what do they like to eat. Right now we have six dishes or rolls and if people don’t like them we take them off and put new ones on.

We just opened a new location opened at the Fountains called Kaizen, which means continuous improvement or change for the better. I want to keep changing to make my customers happy. We just want to know: what do people like? That’s the best sushi, I believe.

Sometimes what I make, I don’t always think it would be good, but if it’s selling, it has to be good.  So trying new things and breaking rules. Even traditional sushi is evolving and moving forward—the kind of rolls you see here, you never used to see in Japan, but now if you go back to some places they will have rolls like we’re used to. They even sell a California Roll in Japan. So I think it’s still evolving and they’re learning how to break those rules and see that it’s good thing. It’s exciting.

What is your favorite roll?

It changes all the time. Most recently it was the Rescue Roll. We made a roll to raise money for the earthquake in Japan. I said, let's sell 1,000 rolls at $12 each so we can donate $12,000 in two weeks. So many people came in, it was overwhelming.  We sold 4,000 rolls in two weeks and raised $60,000 for Japan. So it’s one of my favorite rolls because, how can I not support Japan?

What do you do in your spare time? 

Well, I have a family, I have four kids aged 17, 16, 14 and 13. They are my workers. My oldest is going to be headed to Davis, so he’ll work at the Davis store and my daughter is 16. She’s going to be my Marketing Director and we’ll see how it all works out.

Other than that, I go golfing with my customers, I go to different locations to talk to my wine vendors and talk over glasses of wine. I love my job. In the beginning—when I was 19 was when I really had it the hardest—a customer told me, “I know you’re trying your best, but it’s not what you know it’s who you know. You do whatever you can and God will do the rest.”

That day I just decided, 'All right, I’m retired. I’m just going to do my best and the rest is up to God.' And I’ve never had a bad day since. I’m loving it.