When Chef Kenji Iwase was a salaryman at 20, he had a fateful encounter with a piece of nigiri—and from that moment on, he was destined to be a sushi chef. He started his training at Sushi Hide in Yotsuya, continuing at Nishi-Azabu’s Sushi Sho Masa and Takumi Sushi Ko in Aoyama, before leaving to start Sushi Iwase in 2012.   Over his years of training, Chef Iwase established connections with suppliers nationwide. Not content with simply sourcing his seafood from the Toyosu Fish Market, he formed a network from Hokkaido to southern Kyushu.  Rather than using standard Koshihikari rice to make his shari rice, he chooses Ishikawa-grown Mizuho no Kagayaki—the larger grains and glossy texture give it a distinct mouthfeel.   In the restaurant’s signature dish, sea urchin rice, the sea urchin is mixed thoroughly into the Mizuho no Kagayaki, suffusing it entirely with the sea urchin’s sweet-salty tang.