Shinobu Ito: Great Chefs of Boston Series Mystery Cache

Sorry, but the cache is not at the listed coordinates but is within two miles. You are looking for sushi very near Ito-san's restaurant. BYOP

Hidemi-san (owner), Yoshiko-san (founder), and Ito-san (sushi chef)

Yoshiko-san founded Shogun Japanese Restaurant in 1981 hiring a young Shinobu Ito. At this time Boston was quite unfamiliar with traditional Japanese food and sushi was viewed as an exotic oddity. Over the years that followed, the restaurant built quite a following as the area began to embrace traditional Japanese cuisine.

In 2006, Shogun was purchased by Hidemi-san, who vowed to continue the great traditions established by Yoshiko-san. As the restaurant now celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, you will still find Shinobu Ito, or simply Ito-san, turning out some of the best traditional sushi in Boston.

The night we placed this cache, we treated ourselves to Ito-san’s fabulous sushi. We had four each of his Tuna Lover’s Rolls, Salmon Rolls, Alligator Rolls, and Rainbow Rolls accompanied with three orders of hamachi sushi. To wash it all down, we had six large sakes and three Kirin Lights. We had such a good time that I decided to save the menu as a souvenir.

We don’t normally order this much but we had noticed the table next to us order quite a bit and we didn’t want to be outdone. In the end, they ordered two less of the Salmon Rolls and of the Alligator Rolls, one less order of hamachi, but they did get an order of baby octopus sushi. We also noticed that they just drank four Kirin Lights.

Had we won? Had we the larger bill? Each had the Massachusetts meal tax (no local*) and each of us had put a twenty percent gratuity on the entire bill, but my eyes popped out when I saw the enormous total. Then I looked across the sushi bar and saw Ito-san looking at the Wall Street Journal site on his smart phone. He smiled and said, “Since both tables were trying for a large bill, I decided to help by converting it into my native currency and rounding up.”**

You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.

* though the town of Newton has opted to add at a 0.75% local meal tax, only the Massachusetts meal tax was used in the calculations.

** since the WSJ site no longer works reliably, use a 76.69 yen to dollar conversion rate.

This cache is part of RetiredGuy's Great Chefs of Boston Series of caches: