Can’t argue with having difficulty in finding a truly high quality sushi place in SGV! Within SGV, regardless of whether the sushi counter has a Japanese itamae or not has very little to do with the quality they’re churning out. The crowd they’re going for don’t give a shit either for the most part. Take Taihei in Monterey Park which is an almost 30 years old complete with Japanese staff and itamaes, you can’t convince me that it’s any better than its Chinese or Korean peers. If we venture a little further out to Gen Sushi in Little Tokyo, they’re absolutely one of the worse performing sushiya in their relative tier.
As far as using race as an indicator of quality for the average Joe, yes I can concur that that’s what they’re gonna do. But FTC is food forum full of geeks so we should definitely do better than that because we know the issue is much more nuisance than race.
That’s good to know lol.
Like @Starchtrade said, it’s more of correlation than causation. Are there more quality places run by Japanese chefs? I wouldn’t disagree with that one bit.