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" When I'm in L.A., I go to Spago because the chef is a friend of mine. "

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" I don't go out much. "

" I remember watching steak being cooked on TV and wanting to try it. As a special treat, my mother cooked it for me, and I thought this would be the time I would eat with a knife and fork. Alas, I ate it with chopsticks! "

" I am very lucky to consider many of my business associates friends. Some are closer than others, but I respect and value all of them. "

" One evening, Mike Myers and Steven Spielberg were discussing 'Goldmember,' and I just happened to joke, 'If you need a Japanese character, let me know!' The next day, they called me for audition! I find it's always helpful to maintain a sense of humour. "

" Some hotels have a lot of mirrors, chairs, you can't find the plugs, the music is complicated. But the Nobu concept is beautiful, simple. "

" If I am at home in L.A. on a Saturday or Sunday, I like to start the day with a hot bath and then do an hour of stretching. "

" In my generation, there was no sushi school, no cooking school, so people have to learn from working. "

" Chefs are artists, and I couldn't be happy with my art if I was forced to use cheap ingredients. "

" My flight time is important to me; I actually prefer a longer flight to a short one. That way I have time to read a book, watch movies, and think about new dishes. "

" I grew up in the countryside in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. "

" Dashi remains unfamiliar to most French and American cooks, who tend to reach for a bouillon cube to do many of the same things. But dashi is worth preparing and using the way the Japanese do: for poaching fish, as a soup base, and in simmered dishes. "

" When I was 11 or 12 - a young boy in Japan - one of my older brothers took me to a sushi restaurant. I had never been to one, and it was very memorable. Back then, sushi was expensive and hard to come by, not like today, when there's a sushi restaurant on every street corner and you can buy it in supermarkets. "

" Los Angeles is my home - I have my wife and two daughters growing up there. "

" People eat the chicken, people eat the beef, they still say, 'Don't kill the fish.' "

" I used to watch my mother cooking when I was a child; she influenced me a lot. "

" I'm a lucky person because the company keeps growing, and that means my team keeps growing. "

" With sushi, it is all about balance. Sometimes they cut the fish too thick, sometimes too thin. Often the rice is overcooked or undercooked. Not enough rice vinegar or too much. "

" My business partner Robert De Niro knows a lot about hotels; he opened the Greenwich Hotel in New York City. "

" Sushi is something very exclusive. It is not like a McDonald's, not like a hot dog, not like a French fry. It's very high-class cooking in Japan. "

" I travel all over the world, usually 10 months out of the year. I stay at a lot of hotels, and the ones I like best are clean and not complicated. You go to bed and say, 'Wow, I feel comfortable.' "

" I learned from my first restaurant: Make customers happy, make sure the customer comes back again. And automatically, success has followed me. "

" I like both potatoes and rice. You can do a lot with both of them. But if I could eat only one carbohydrate for the rest of my life, I wouldn't choose bread, potatoes or even noodles. I'd go for rice instead; I eat more of that than anything else. "

" My cooking is very simple, so I don't really use machines at all. A knife, cutting board, frying pan and strainer are my essentials. "

" When I'm home in L.A., I go to La Brea, a bakery which does artisan breads, excellent sourdoughs primarily, but also patisserie and cakes. "

" What I relish most is when a member of my staff, who has worked with passion and patience towards achieving their dream of owning a restaurant, walks up to me and says, 'Nobu! I have done it!' "

" I feel like I owe something to America, as it is where I found success. "

" Of course the Japanese and Peruvian fish are different, but it's the same Pacific Ocean. They are different, but I know fish. "

" My favorite knife is from Miyakoya in Japan - I have one in each of my restaurants. "

" Cooking is like fashion. Always, I like to try to change. If I'm traveling in a different country - to Australia, the Bahamas, Budapest, Moscow - and I see a new ingredient, I like to try it in a new dish. "

" Peru was the Incas; it has 3,000 to 4,000 years of history. "