Abuqir - by Will Movsovitz
🚨 Today, we are excited to introduce our first ever Served Profile. Going forward, there will be some weeks where we go out to eat with interesting people in the food world, and tell you about them and their favorite restaurants. This first profile is of Saif Khawaja, a good friend of Grant’s from Penn. He’s also the founder and CEO of Shinkei Systems which aims to democratize access to omakase-quality fish by automating a process known as ike jime. Shinkei, which started at Penn, has earned Saif the first ever President's Sustainability Prize, a spot in Y Combinator, and notable venture capital backing.
In addition to running an impressive company, Saif also has great taste in food. You can read below about our trip to Abuqir, an Egyptian fish restaurant in Queens.
Let us know if you know any movers and shakers in the world of food. We would love to meet them. 🚨
It was wet. If I had to summarize our entire Saturday in one sentence, that would probably be it. For those of you who don’t live in the Northeastern United States, the weather gods have been tormenting us with beautiful weather for the entire work week - only to bring near constant rainfall on Saturday. It happened last week. It happened again this week. It’s forecasted for next week. Rain, rain, go away. Come again on a weekday.
Typically when clouds replace sun, and rain begins to cry down from above, I feel sad as well. It’s not fun to be limited by the discomfort of being wet. A five minute walk becomes a game of dashing underneath adjacent balconies. A ten minute walk becomes an Uber. It’s generally better when things are dry, but this particular weekend being rainy made sense. This past Saturday, I was running through raindrops to meet Saif Khawaja - a man who’s dedicated his life (thus far) to fish.
“I’m so wet I feel like a fish” - started out as a dumb joke. We were all three (Grant, Saif, and I) crammed into the back of what I think was a Toyota Camry, with a 50-minute drive to Astoria, Queens ahead of us. Drenched from the rain, shivering from the AC, and my wool sweater smelling like wet dog. I couldn’t stop myself from drawing parallels to the problem that Saif is solving as the CEO and founder of Shinkei Systems. We don’t like to be wet. Fish don’t like to be dry.
Shinkei Systems is seeking to automate a fish harvesting technique known as ike jime. It’s a Japanese preparation method that kills the fish quickly and drains it of its blood. The literal translation of ike jime is “head spike” - which refers to how the fish gets to heaven. Then arteries in the gills and tail are cut to allow the heart to pump blood out of the fish - a process known as exsanguination. Finally, the spinal cord is severed which staves off rigor mortis and prevents the release of any stress signals after death. Once you’ve completed these steps, you have meat that will dry age instead of rotting. Suitable for omakase counters and fancy restaurants everywhere. Those in the know actually seek out fish with holes in their heads - a telltale sign of ike jime.
The figurative translation of ike jime is “kill with respect” - which is more in line with why Saif started Shinkei in the first place. After a string of successful projects in college that dealt with environmental sustainability, he found himself researching whether fish can feel pain. He learned that if fish could scream, our fishing boats would be loud. Human nervous systems are super different from those of fish, but fish do show pain-avoidant behaviors. They also release stress hormones, like cortisol, when suffering before death - which break down the flesh. The vast majority of the estimated one trillion fish that are pulled from the ocean each year are unceremoniously left to suffocate to death on the boat. It’s a process that can take hours.
Saif and the team at Shinkei Systems are designing robots that humanely harvest fish and yield a better quality, longer-lasting product. It’s really a win-win for everyone involved (especially the fish). In the past, the largest barrier to the proliferation of ike jime was its inability to scale efficiently. Shinkei hopes to adopt a model that grows with producers instead of requiring a bunch of up-front investment. They want to turn “CapEx into OpEx” and spoilage into dollar signs.
This is all well and good, but need I remind you that this is a newsletter about restaurants? Sure - Saif can build cool robots, but where does the guy like to eat? Asking that question was the impetus of the previously mentioned 50-minute Uber ride. Surprise surprise - Saif likes to eat good fish. And according to him, one of the best places to get high quality seafood is at Abuqir in Queens.
Saif grew up in Saudi Arabia and Dubai and assured us that the experience at Abuqir, named after a town in Egypt, is similar to what you can expect in the Middle East. There isn’t much to look at once you walk in except for a giant pile of ice and sea creatures at the front of the restaurant. They’ve got squids, octopuses, sardines, prawns, different colors and sizes of whole fish. It’s the type of variety that would make an aquarium envious. Saif was unfazed. He was a man on a mission to find the freshest fish in the whole joint. With gloved hands, he lifted up their heads to check the color on the gills. Apparently, you’re looking for a deep red color, almost purple. It’s also important to check the eyes. Any cloudiness is a sign that the fish could have an infection. Best to avoid.
It’s funny to eat seafood with Saif because it’s literally his job to taste test the world’s best. Shinkei works with a farm that provides fish to 17 Michelin star restaurants with 20 Michelin stars between them. While Grant and I were rambling about the obvious quality of the feast we had before us, Saif mentioned that for him eating fish can sometimes feel like “a sommelier drinking Franzia.” His palate is trained to detect all of the little impurities. Grant and I would never notice them. Which is only a testament to Abuqir because Saif is practically a regular.
This best-of-the-best fish most likely comes from the Fulton Fish Market - which supposedly relocated away from Fulton Street in the Seaport and to Hunts Point in the South Bronx in 2005. As of 2006, it was the second largest seafood market in the world - smaller only than the Tsukiji Market in Tokyo. These markets represent an important stop on a complicated global supply chain. Fish come from all over the globe. Caught by fishermen, sold to distributors, transported to markets, sold to restaurants like Abuqir, and then eaten by hungry little boys like me. The magnitude of it all is simply mind blowing. When we asked Saif why restaurants and grocery stores can’t simply cut out the distributor in the middle, his response was because fish are perishable. The distributor invests in the infrastructure required to move fish in a way that keeps them fresh and in good condition. They’re kind of like giant factories that buy from individual fishermen; then move the product where it needs to go. Distribution is easier when the fish is ike-jime’d because the time to spoilage is much longer. But I digress.
We ended up ordering a little bit of everything, but the highlights for me were the seared scallops, fried calamari, and whole red snapper - one of Saif’s favorite varieties of fish. He told us that it has a low floor, and a high ceiling while masterfully deboning the filets. The only slip up came when Grant accidentally dropped the entire carcass + head onto the table. That’s just showbiz baby.
The scallops were very melt in your mouth, simply seared and served with butter plus a dusting of spices. Our mountain of fried calamari was hot, fresh, well-seasoned, and oh so tender. Sometimes you get heat lamp calamari that tastes like a rubber band, but this was a celebration of squid. Finally, the snapper was the crown jewel of the meal. Eating fish was the sole (pun intended) reason we wanted to get seafood with Saif. It was simply grilled and served whole. They let the meat speak for itself - which we appreciated.
Abuqir is just one of those places where the inputs are so high quality that anything you order will be good. Some things that aren’t ocean-related that you should be sure to order are the flatbread with tahini and the Laziza 0-proof malted beverage. The bread was hot, chewy, and begging to be dunked into the smooth, cold, slightly acidic tahini dip. If you like to eat your seafood with sauce, you can use this throughout the meal like Egyptian ranch dressing. The Laziza, we got the pomegranate flavor, was refreshing and cleansed our palates after some of the richer proteins like the calamari and scallops.
Once our plates were clean, and stomachs full, it was back out into the rain. A chance to reflect on the meal we just had, and the lives of animals that were plucked from the water to provide it for us.
Overall - eating with Saif was an absolute treat. We can’t thank him enough for the adventure to Queens. When we were having tea after the meal, he said that “everyone’s gift to the world is being themselves - and sharing that with people.” Hopefully we’ve given you a sense of who Saif is, what he’s building, and most importantly what he likes to eat. In addition to Abuqir, his favorite NYC restaurants are: Los Tacos No. 1, Hasaki, The Den, and Rezdora.
Going forward, we’re going to try to share a bit more about what makes people tick in addition to their favorite restaurants. We’ll be speaking to waiters, founders, or anyone who really understands how the New York (and beyond) food scene works. If you know anyone who fits the bill, we would love to chat with them.
See you next week.
Served,
The Supper Club
Relevant links in case you want to learn more:
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