May and Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh at their new restaurant, Poke Paradise. (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh is back with a new restaurant, Poke Paradise, which he owns with his wife May.
The restaurant at 6343 Summer Avenue, Number 110, the former site of Izzy & Adam’s pizza restaurant, opened August 20th.
He will be selling poke bowls, including “Spicy Kimchi Taco,” “Fire Salmon,” “Rainbow,” and “Spicy Ninja.”
Poke, which originally is from Hawaii, was created by fishermen, Sinh says. The dish is made from raw fish, usually tuna and salmon, but other fish can be used as well. Then soy and sesame sauce and “other goodies like seaweed” are added, he says.
Sinh is including his famous sushi rolls, including the special rolls and traditional rolls. The menu also includes sushi burritos, sashimi, nigiri, and a range of appetizers and entrees.
“We brought back fried rice,” Sinh says. “We have Japanese cold noodles. And we have a few more things we’re going to add on once I have enough staff trained. We’ll run some specials on the weekends; depending on what the season is, we’ll match the season we’re in.”
Sinh owned the popular Sushi Jimmi Asian Fusion restaurant at 2895 Poplar Avenue. He closed that restaurant on May 23rd, 2019.
As to why he wanted to open a new restaurant, Sinh says, “I’ve been doing really well with Poke Paradise [food truck] for the past four years, and we’ve done a lot of catering and a lot of private dinners.”
But, he says, “What made us want this restaurant is, it’s more consistent for the customers to enjoy. We’re open all day long and they can walk in anytime they want to order anything they like on the normal menu.”
And people can now find him at one spot. “Instead of trying to follow me around town on the food truck or keep up with my schedule at the shop.”
“It has the perfect amount of space I needed,” he adds. “It’s not too big where I can’t manage it.”
There are “just enough tables” for customers to sit down and enjoy his food, Sinh says.
And he doesn’t need as much staff, but, he says, “I still need a good staff to run the place for me. Starting September is when I’ll get back to being on the road doing my catering and private dinners.”
Customers can still see him at his restaurant, but “a lot of the weekends I will be gone because every year there are the same customers who book me for catering and private dinners.”
His takeout shop at 5310 Crestview Road is now closed. “As for right now, the food truck is not operating because I want to get this restaurant up and going before we even talk about the food truck.”
Poke Paradise “is not a brand-new business. It’s just transitioned to a restaurant. And now that it’s a restaurant, customers can enjoy it more. And they can come in and see me during the weekdays.”
But Sinh might not get out of the kitchen that quickly to greet his fans. “I’m always in the back cooking. And that’s what I have always loved doing.”
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh is hitting the road with his new bright red “Poke Paradise” food trailer tonight, January 26th.
And that’s heavenly news for Sushi Jimmi fans.
“I’ll be at High Cotton brewery,” Sinh says. “I’ll be serving from 5 to 8:30 p.m. But if we have a huge crowd, I’ll be serving a little bit later if I need to.”
He’ll be selling poke as well as sushi on his trailer. “Poke is diced raw fish served with either a soy base or mayo base. I serve mine the more traditional style. I focus on the fish. Not a lot of sides.”
The only sides Sinh includes are edamame, seaweed salad or avocado.
He also will be operating out of his Poke Paradise shop at 5310 Crestview Road. “Whenever I’m not doing any private dinners or catering, we’ll be out on the food truck. When we’re not on the food truck, we’ll be at the shop doing to-go orders. You can always order from the shop. You can call it in or pick it up. We have DoorDash.”
As for where you can find Sinh’s food trailer, he says, “I’ll be all over the city. Right now I’ve got a lot of people calling me with certain locations.”
That includes neighborhoods, he says. “If the neighborhood gives me permission to do it, I’m open to it. We’re looking to give everyone a try.”
Sinh has no set time for when he will be setting up his food trailer. “It fluctuates. If we have any private parties throughout the week, we’ll be out three or five times a week. If we don’t have any parties, then we’ll be out five, six days a week.”
He ordered the 16-by-8-foot trailer in 2021 and got it the next year. He pulls it with his pick-up truck.
Sinh doesn’t have any stoves on the trailer. “It’s just a bunch of refrigeration. I’m not doing any propane stove or any type of flat top griddle. The reason I did it like that is because I want to focus on the strongest part of my career, which is, right now, the sushi side.”
He also doesn’t have to worry about employing a lot of staff. “The way I created this food truck is either I can operate it by myself or have an extra person on there. I shouldn’t need more than two people to operate the truck.”
For now, Sinh has a limited menu, which includes his two “hottest” selling poke bowls: Spicy Ninja and Fire Salmon. “I’m trying to get a feel of the crowd just to see what they want.”
What sells stays on the menu, he says. “It’ll be two or three months before I make an official menu.”
Spicy Ninja is spicy tuna, crab mix, avocado, sushi rice, and Arcadian greens.
Fire Salmon is fresh salmon mixed with spicy mayo and Kewpie mayo, a Japanese mayonnaise, which, he says, has “a little more flavor to it.”
He sears the salmon to add more flavor. “I sear it with my torch and it brings more flavor from the fish and mayo. And then I top it with eel sauce, masago, green onions, fried onions, and then furikake.”
Sinh will include “just a few” of his sushi rolls on his food trailer menu. “The ones that sell the best are going to be on it.”
The “Los Angeles,” one of the sushi rolls, is made with shrimp tempura, cucumber, spicy crawfish, crab stick, spicy mayo, eel sauce, sriracha, fried onions, masago, green onions, and furikake.
The “Los Angeles” sushi roll (Credit: Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh)
He also will include his sushi burritos. “People love them. It’s a large sushi roll cut in half. And it looks just like a burrito. We have a dipping sauce you can dip with it on the side.”
Sinh is bringing back his Diablo sauce. “Just a very spicy hot chili sauce. Very thick. Made with a lot of different spices. It’s one of the sauces I had when I had my restaurant.”
He will include his “901” sushi burrito. “That’s a Memphis favorite. That is really a Memphis gem right there. I sell more 901s than any sushi burrito. That one has salmon, spicy tuna, crab mix, cucumber, avocado, and Arcadian greens.”
Sinh’s 901 sushi burrito (Credit: Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh)
Sinh also will serve his Spicy Tuna Nacho Supreme, which is made with spicy Ahi tuna, crab mix, pico de gallo, avocado, tobiko and Doritos nacho chips.
Spicy Tuna Nacho Supreme (Credit: Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh)
Sinh will keep people notified of his food trailer’s whereabouts at pokeparadise901 on his Facebook and Instagram pages. “Every day I’ll post all the information that’s needed. And they can call me.” He can be reached at (901) 604-0058.
Sinh’s future plans include getting a full-scale food truck. “I prefer a regular food truck. That’s going to be on my list. I want to be back on an actual food truck just because it’s more comfortable. I want to bring a full kitchen back later on.”
He used to have a food truck, but he wants the next one to be a “larger” truck.
“This time I want a 24-foot long one.”
High Cotton Brewing Co. is at 598 Monroe Avenue; (901) 543-4444
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi”
Sinh has become
somewhat of icon,
not just in our
publication, but in
Memphis as a whole. (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh has been on a roll since he closed his old Sushi Jimmi Asian fusion restaurant on Poplar and his first food truck. That was three years ago. Now, he plans to open a new food truck, Poke Paradise, in mid-June. In the meantime he’s doing pop-ups and catering.
Sinh, 34, is an icon — some might say even a “legend” — in the Memphis food community. Articles about him blow up with hits, views, likes, and shares on social media. He’s created his own brand. And people love him.
Here at the Flyer, we’ve followed Sinh’s many moves — his brick-and-mortar restaurant, his food truck, his cooking show, his plan to leave Memphis, and his subsequent decision to stay here — and we sometimes get a little flak for it. But what can we say? Our readers eat it up. Now, almost exactly a year after we reported Sinh’s decision to stay in Memphis, and just weeks before the debut of his Poke Paradise food truck, we’re finally telling the whole saga of Sushi Jimmi, the local legend and many foodies’ favorite.
“He is my favorite sushi chef in town,” says Jordan Beatty, executive chef at the Flip Side restaurant. “The layering of the ingredients, just the quality of the ingredients, is always extremely fresh. I’ve gone to some other sushi restaurants. The rice might have been made a couple of days ago. Or some other ingredients are not too quality. He prides himself on ordering the best fish that comes into town.”
Sugar Grits executive corporate chef Lee Anna Beatty says, “Chef Jimmy Sinh is our very own Sushi Master of Memphis.”
But just who is Sushi Jimmi? Where did he come from?
Sinh has always approached sushi with a fiery passion, sometimes at the self-admitted risk of burnout. (Photos: Michael Donahue)
On Beginnings “I was born in South Vietnam,” says Sinh, one of seven children.
When he was 2-and-a-half years old, Sinh and his family moved to Los Angeles, where the majority of his family lived. When he was 6, his parents moved the family to Memphis where they pursued better job opportunities. His mother worked in a food warehouse, and his father in an automotive business.
In Sinh’s household, his mom did the cooking. “My favorite dish my mom cooked was her pho. She cooked it pretty often. Growing up, we rarely went out. She cooked all the time. And I learned how to prep and get things ready for the next day because of her,” Sinh remembers.
“My mom was always on schedule. She worked a lot. And when she came home everything was ready. She’d make four or five dishes in 30 minutes because she had so many kids to feed. And to be able to do that, you have to prepare that the day before. You come home, you cook.”
Sinh’s mother had plenty of practice preparing many meals, both for her family and for hungry customers. “In Vietnam, she was a street food vendor, selling pretty much anything she could get her hands on,” Sinh says. “She’d make some noodle soups, fried rice, banh mi. That’s how we survived. I’ve got three brothers and three sisters.”
Though the culinary craft was on display at home, cars — not cooking — were Sinh’s first passion. “My brother loved going to car lots. When I was younger he’d always take me,” Sinh says.
“I didn’t really get interested in cooking until I was 16 in high school. Freshman year. I got my first job. I never thought in life I would ever end up in a Japanese restaurant. I thought I would end up like everyone else — in a Chinese restaurant for my first job.”
He worked as a host at Benihana, and he was mesmerized by one station in particular. “I always looked over at the sushi bar every chance I got and I’d just watch. As kids, you just see some things you just like to watch.
“I asked the head chef, ‘Can I work at the sushi bar?’ And they gave me an opportunity. I worked at the sushi bar for two weeks.”
But, he says, “I was more the helper and I didn’t like that.” Sinh is creative, an attribute that expresses itself often in his menu items, and it made him want to do more than be a “helper.”
His friend Tony Do got him a job at Do’s family’s restaurant, Nagasaki Inn, which is where Sinh really sank his teeth into preparing sushi.
Do made sure Sinh learned the foundations of rolling sushi. “I started practicing and I just got better at it,” he says.
A creative cook, Sinh also did his own thing with sushi. “I’m very good at improvising. When I see pictures I come up with something of my own. I get an idea and put it with my idea.”
Nagasaki Inn co-owner Harold Do, Tony’s father, was a mentor to young Sinh. “He’s like an uncle to me. I see Mr. Harold all the time. We always hug. That man has taught me so much. That’s why I work so hard. I’ve never seen anybody work so hard as him,” Sinh says.
Sinh admired Do’s strong work ethic, and his rapport with his customers. “Being in front of him watching him cook is an honor. He works hard and he has the opportunity to still come out and show his face. That’s why customers come to see him. How else are you going to see the man cook for you and tell you jokes?”
And, he says, “I was a teenager. And Mr. Harold was the one who was really there for me to keep me off the streets. From being around the wrong crowd. He’s not just a great chef, but a great person. I loved working there. It’s one of those memories you never forget.”
Working at Nagasaki Inn was Sinh’s favorite restaurant experience. “Harold and his son, Tony, treated me like family. I’ll never forget it. I had the best teenage life working there. I learned so much. And I always tell people, ‘Nobody cooks hibachi better than Nagasaki, in my opinion.’
“We all helped each other out. We worked together as a team. At nighttime we would sit down together as a family.”
Photo: Michael Donahue
Sushi Evolution Sinh was at Nagasaki Inn for two years. “I took the sushi game a lot more seriously when I was around 21. That was when I told myself I want to do sushi for the rest of my life. I just saw the lack of knowledge around. When people eat sushi they get confused. I told myself, ‘I want to be the one that teaches people how to eat it. And not be afraid of trying it.’”
Later, Sinh learned how to do more advanced sushi. He got a job at the old Wasabi Sushi & Asian Fusion in Cordova. “That was the first time for me to do more advanced sushi. That’s where I spent a lot of time doing more of the raw stuff like the nigiri and the sashimi.”
He got the name Sushi Jimmi while working at the sushi bar. “There was a party going on. Somebody was asking for me and one of my buddies said, ‘Who are you looking for? Are you looking for Jimmy? Jimmy who? Sushi Jimmy?’ That’s how I got the name ‘Sushi Jimmi.’”
In 2014, Sinh, who helped open Red Fish restaurant locations, decided to open his own food truck. He had plenty of experience, and the market for food trucks was growing. “The food truck scene got bigger and bigger here in the Mid-South,” he says. “I was having my third kid and it motivated me to start up my own business. Me and my wife just had a long conversation about what are we going to do.”
He wondered if he should work “paycheck to paycheck” or do what he loves “and make a living at it.” Turning a passion into a profession would be hard work and would come with no shortage of challenges, but it was the most alluring option.
Sinh had a food truck built in Dallas. It made its debut in 2015 at the Mid-South Food Truck Festival, where he did “really well,” Sinh remembers.
He didn’t just sell sushi. “We had spring rolls. We had egg rolls. We had kimchi fries. We had crawfish nachos. People love the crawfish nachos. They were one of those big-hit things.”
Flush from the success of his food truck, in 2017, Sinh opened his Sushi Jimmi restaurant at 2895 Poplar. “I was trying to provide people with job opportunities.” And, he adds, “I wanted to expand my business a little more.”
But opening the restaurant wasn’t a good idea, Sinh says. “That was the worst mistake I ever made.”
With the food truck, Sinh had more time to enjoy his family, but a brick-and-mortar restaurant, and the staff it takes to run one, means a bigger commitment and more time spent at work. “When I had the restaurant, I never had a day I could enjoy,” he says.
He closed Sushi Jimmi on May 23, 2019, and he closed his food truck the next day. “Having to run the food truck and the restaurant by myself was burning me out,” Sinh admits. “If you don’t feel happy, stop. I stopped before I hated it. You don’t want to lose what you fell in love with.”
Sinh eventually went to work at other restaurants, including Saltwater Crab and at Saito 2.
In April 2021, Sinh announced he was moving to Orlando, Florida, in May. He said it would be a better opportunity for him and his family.
He also wanted to take a two-month vacation and spend time with his wife and children.
In June 2021, Sinh announced he was staying in Memphis. He said in a Flyer interview he and his wife didn’t want to move while his children were so young. The children needed “to bond a little more as a family.” They also had another child on the way.
Sinh told the Flyer, “When I shut Sushi Jimmi down, I hopped back into my work. Worked really hard like I did at Sushi Jimmi. I never gave myself a break, so I kind of burned myself out and just hated what I was doing.”
As Sinh returns to the food truck business, he plans to go beyond the “Sushi Jimmi” moniker to expand his repertoire to poke. (Photo: Michael Donahue)
Poke Paradise The life of a chef often means hard work and long hours, and the same can be said for any small business owner. And, if the pun can be pardoned, there’s always the risk of getting burned, or burned out. That’s when Sinh came up with the idea to improve his private chef business and open his Poke Paradise food truck. He said, “I want to bring Sushi Jimmi to you. Make sure it’s something you’ll never forget.”
Sinh is happy to be “going mobile” again. Poke Paradise is “a brand you can actually franchise,” he says.
Poke is diced fresh fish, usually served with soy sauce and onion. “You can eat it spicy, and you can make it with the soy sauce base or mayo base or eat it the way it is,” Sinh explains. “It was created by fishermen with leftover fish. It was created in Hawaii. It’s a Japanese-Hawaiian dish.”
He wanted to serve something simple and healthy for people to eat. At Sinh’s Poke Paradise, people can choose from four or five different sauces.
Sinh is ready to introduce his “version of poke.”
“I’m always the person who likes the extra. I want my customers to have a little bit of an option. We’re going to have heat — mango habanero sauce. Nothing better than fresh fish and the right sauce.”
Until he gets his food truck on the road, Sinh is doing pop-ups, special orders, and catering. “Just so that we can keep ourselves busy and at the same time try new things to see what we can put on our new menu. To see if it will work on the truck once we have the truck out.” Customers can find him on Facebook (@SushiJimmi) and on Instagram (@sushi_jimmi).
Sinh “cooks with love,” says artist, actor, entrepreneur Kia Shine. “And it comes through when you’re eating.”
His sushi has “great presentation,” Shine adds. “And it’s really, really good, man. He knows what he’s doing with that sushi.”
Shine recalled a few years ago after he and members of the Heal the Hood Foundation of Memphis visited Sinh’s restaurant after delivering turkeys. “There were about 13 of us, and he was just bringing sushi dish after dish after dish after dish.”
When it came time to pay the bill, Sinh told Shine, “Nah, I got this.”
Shine continues, “He’s a giver. That speaks volumes about the individual.”
Sinh plans to one day franchise Poke Paradise brick-and-mortar restaurants in other cities. For now, he wants to be mobile with maybe one or two people to help him. “All I can tell you is if the customer keeps supporting me, better things will come,” he says. “Every dollar I make I put it right back in the business to make the business better. I’m going to take my time with this.”
“Jimmy has influenced the way we enjoy sushi in Memphis,” says Suzie “Big Sue” Purnell, iHeartMedia senior vice president of programming. “What some may see as an intimidating experience, Jimmy counters by bringing joy, pride, creativity, and fun to everything he creates. That’s a real gift and what makes him such a star.”
“My Favorite Things,” which has become a holiday classic song over the years, triggered the idea to ask Memphis chefs and food aficionados what memory sticks with them as one of the best things they’ve ever eaten anywhere. They might not be able to fit it into a stocking, but it ranks up there with “bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens.”
Kelly English, chef/owner of Restaurant Iris, The Second Line, Panta, and Fino’s from the Hill: “There is one dish that really made my mind up to jump in and try to be a chef — the gnocchi and gulf crab meat with truffle at the restaurant August in New Orleans. On a flavor and texture level, this was a mind-blowing dish. But it was simple. It’s a bite I will never forget.”
Keun Anderson, head chef at Texas de Brazil: “I love anime and Naruto is one of my favorite animes. So, when it comes to the best food I ever had, I can’t help myself. I love ramen. And Flame Ramen is the best.”
Reuben Skahill, veteran Memphis bartender/server: “I had a bender of goat cheese pasta with blackened chicken from Amerigo [Italian Restaurant] five days a week for three years and was always satisfied … warm pasta that makes its own creamy sauce from the goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes as you mix all the flavors together.”
Karen Barrett, chef/owner of The Happy Belly Company of Memphis: “One of my favorite food memories is when I was learning to cook with my great-grandmother, and she literally made the best sweet potato pie I’ve ever had in my life. The crust was perfect and her pie filling was so rich and deeply colored you’d almost think it was pumpkin. … I won’t share the secret to her pie, but I will tell you there’s nothing wrong with adding a little bourbon in your recipe. Trust me on this one.”
Josh Steiner, MealMD executive chef: “My grandma Jacqueline’s lasagna. It has all kinds of cheeses like whipped ricotta mixed with fresh herbs. It also has a lot of fresh marinara. And I like to add lots of black pepper to it.”
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh, chef/owner of Poke Paradise food truck: “The tomahawk [steak] from Folk’s Folly. It’s a lot better ’cause the bone adds more flavor to the meat. And they just make it the way I like it.”
Justin Hughes, assistant pastry chef at The Peabody: “One of the best things I’ve had was from The Crazy Noodle. It was the cucumber salad and spicy Korean ramen they serve. The ramen is well-balanced with flavor.”
Nick Scott, chef/owner of Salt|Soy: “My friend Mitsu Isoda ran Jewel Bako in New York. He did a dry-aged bluefin tuna nigiri. It was the absolute best piece of fish that I’ve ever tasted. He now runs Omakase Room by Mitsu in New York. He dry-aged it for around 25 days in a very cold temperature. It compounded the flavor and tenderized the meat. It melted as you ate it. He brushed soy on it and put a small amount of wasabi underneath the fish. It didn’t need anything. It was easily the best thing I’ve eaten.”
Miles Tamboli, chef/owner of Tamboli’s Pasta & Pizza: “Artesano pizza bar, town of Lagoa da Conceicao on the island of Santa Catarina in the city of Florianopolis, Brazil. This place used to be way less fancy. When I went there around 2005 they had this burger they called the X Burger that had everything you can imagine on it. Two patties, peas, corn, a hot dog, special sauce, a slab of ham, all kinds of shit. It was incredible.”
Schuyler O’Brien, founder/creator of Over Yonder ice cream: “The best meal I ever had was a 13-course tasting menu at The Barn at Blackberry Farm. The most memorable thing I’ve ever eaten were the Pig Face Parker House rolls from Odd Duck in Austin — classic yeast rolls stuffed with braised pig face on house Dijon mustard.”
Jimmy "Sushi Jimmi" Sinh and his new food truck (Credit: Jimmy "Sushi Jimmi" Sinh)
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh is ready to roll.
And not just his sushi rolls. He’s ready to get the wheels rolling on his brand new food truck.
Sinh picked up his 16-foot-truck October 11th in Arkansas. He’s planning to open it for business at his first pop-up event the weekend of October 16th, but he hasn’t decided where. He does know he’s not going to just be selling sushi.
Why pop ups? “Because we want to get a feel of the crowd,” Sinh says. “I have a really good following.”
But, he says, “We have a lot of new customers, too.”
People moving into the city search the internet looking for “the best sushi in Memphis,” he says. “‘Sushi Jimmi’ pops up.”
That was the name of his first restaurant and food truck, which he closed in 2018.
The pop ups will help him see how he wants to create his menu, Sinh says. “I think that’s the smarter move. Before we make anything official, let’s test it out first so we’ll know what will sell and what won’t. That will eliminate failure.”
Sinh, who has worked at other restaurants since he closed his restaurant, was going to move to Florida with his family early last summer, but he changed his mind and decided to stay in Memphis and start another business. “I’ve always invested in the city. Even if I wasn’t here, I was going to come back and invest in the city again. That’s always been my plan.”
His mother came up with the food truck idea. “My mom reminded me how much I love doing that. And she told me, ‘Why don’t you go back to food trucking again?’ She knew I was very happy when I was food trucking. She knew I was one of those people who loves a journey. Every day I’m in a food truck I’m on a different route every day. Sometimes I’m in a different state. The whole thing about a food truck is every day you’re somewhere new. You don’t stay in one spot. It doesn’t burn you out.
“I bought an actual food box truck and I was working on it, but I changed my mind. Because the one question I asked myself when I thought about doing another food truck was, ‘What can you do better than you did on your last journey with a food truck?’ I told myself I don’t want to do another ‘hot side,’ which is is a deep fryer, flat top, and char grilling.”
He didn’t want to “worry about my second person or third person in line. Depending on staffing.”
This time out, Sinh decided to go “all refrigeration and warmers,” which means “mainly just refrigeration and air fryers. I’m cooking a lot of things in a different way.”
He wants no more ventilation, propane, or deep fryer problems. “We just want to take that headache and chunk it out the window.”
Sinh researched and found a company in Arkansas, where he bought his new food truck. “I designed it and I told them what I wanted in there.”
The truck is in Sinh’s red-and-black signature colors. “Same color as Sushi Jimmi food truck in 2015.”
He learned a lot from his last food trucking experience. “Being a food trucker is not just cooking food. There are a lot of things you have to learn. You’ve got to maintain your truck. Give yourself a pretty good blueprint of your truck and trailer to make things easier for you.”
That means putting everything in a convenient spot. “Where you can twist and turn and reach for things no further than three-feet away.”
Sinh now has a building, which will be his headquarters and houses his commercial kitchen. “Where I can park my food truck, do food prepping, and store equipment. ‘Cause I do private cheffing and catering.”
He will be able to cook everything at the headquarters and then load up his truck. “I roll the majority of my sushi and have all my other food ready, which means when my customers come up to order, it’s right there. They let us know what they want, we bag it up, and hand it to them.”
His pop ups will feature “a small menu” that will appeal to everybody, but it also will let him know “which items stay on the menu and which don’t.”
Of course, they will feature sushi. “We will always have sushi. And then we’re going to bring in a little bit of ‘poke’ — fish and soy sauce pretty much. It’s a special type of soy sauce.”
They also will do kimchi fries, “which everybody tells me they miss. Crawfish nachos. We’re going to have some sashimi, nigiri. It’s going to be a very good selection. We’re also going to give customers a combination family meal where you can kind of pick and choose. You come up to the food truck, ‘Hey, I want the nigiri combo, the sashimi combo, the three-roll combo.’”
And, he says, “Tell us what you want and it’s right there.”
His goal is to “keep it very simple.”
Sinh hopes to take the truck on the road and “go to different food truck fests, go out of town to different cities, and collaborate with other people. I’m down for everything and anything. Private dinners. I can fly out or drive the food truck.”
Asked how he feels about his new venture, Sinh says, “I’m actually really stoked.”
He’s surprised he’s going to be back with his own business this soon. “I guess great things happen to those who wait. I learned that a lot after I shut down the business. Second chance. I’m just ready to start over. And we all learn how to do things better the second time around. I just want to tell everybody that’s been supporting me for the past year, ‘thank you.’”
Sinh will hold pop ups until January. “That will be our debut date. Our first day out officially ready to roll.”
And, he says, “That’s when we have our schedule out and we’re ready to hit locations.”
That’s also when he will reveal the name of his new business, which will not be “Sushi Jimmi,” Sinh says. “Sushi Jimmi is me. It’s a person. It’s a brand, but it’s a person. Sushi Jimmi is what I’ve been called for years. But this time when we come out with a brand, I don’t want to name it after me. I want an actual brand. Something we can use for the long term.
“I don’t want anything to be named after me anymore. I’ve been out there for years and everybody knows who I am. I’m Sushi Jimmi. I want them to know more about the product this time.”
To find out where Sinh’s food truck pop ups will be, follow him on his “Sushi Jimmi” Facebook and Instagram pages.
Jimmy "Sushi Jimmi" Sinh was moving to Orlando, but he's decided to stay in Memphis.
Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh was going to move to Orlando, but he’s staying in Memphis, where he’ll continue to do his private chef jobs.
For now, he’s taking a two-month vacation at his home in the country near Memphis. “I don’t know what I want to do yet, but, so far, I just want to continue doing my private chef-ing,” Sinh says. “So, that’s what I’ve been trying to do, trying to get people to reserve more dates and book up the rest of the year. If I don’t, somebody else will. The main thing is I’m going to take two months to relax and spend some time with my wife, my kids.”
Sinh and his family talked it over, he says. “We don’t want to move the family when the kids are so young. And we just felt like the kids need to bond a little more as a family.”
Part of his family was moving to Texas. “I was moving in one direction, the other part of my family in another direction. We feel like the family would be split a little too far. We decided to stay back a little bit and raise the family here.”
Long range plans include starting another food truck. “The last one I did I just pretty much overwhelmed myself. Like I was just trying to do too much. This one, I’m going to still keep the sushi. And I want my customers to eat a lot cleaner. I don’t know if I’m going to have a lot of the stuff I’d normally have, like a lot of fried stuff. Everything would just be cooked a lot cleaner. And have a lot more healthier options and do more sashimi and nigiri on this truck.”
The food truck won’t be called “Sushi Jimmi,” he says. “It’s going to be called something else. I want to come out with a different brand. Still have it made by Sushi Jimmi.”
Sinh wants to chill for a couple of months. “We live in the countryside and I’m loving it.”
And, he says, “I’m more of a country boy. I love large land. I don’t like to be in the city. And when I’m home I like to be in my own personal space. I don’t want to be in a noisy environment or anything like that.”
As for his plan to move to Orlando, Sinh says, “I was going to grab just a regular job and just kind of get a feel of how things work out there. But working all these years I never really took a nice vacation for myself or took the family out on a nice vacation. It makes you hate where you are in one spot and makes you not appreciate where you are.”
Sinh, who moved to Memphis from an Orlando suburb in 1995, closed his first restaurant, “Sushi Jimmi,” and food truck in May 2019. Sinh, who gained legions of fans, went on to work at Saltwater Crab, La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant, and, finally, at Saito 2.
“When I shut Sushi Jimmi down, I hopped back into my work. Worked really hard like I did at Sushi Jimmi. I never gave myself a break, so I kind of burned myself out and just hated what I was doing. That’s why I decided I’m taking a break. Take two months off. Give myself some ‘me’ time and think about what I can do for this city. And that’s what I’m doing right now. I’m actually driving out of town to pick up some stuff to improve my private chef-ing. I want to bring Sushi Jimmi to you. Make sure it’s something you’ll never forget. It’s one of those experiences you’ve got to have.”
And, as for opening another restaurant of his own some day, Sinh says, “I don’t know about a restaurant just because of how bad of an experience I had when I had my restaurant. I’d hire people and people don’t want to go to work. Look at right now. Nobody wants to work. I don’t want to have to deal with those situations any more.
“I’m a one-stop shop. I come fix the food, serve you, and clean up. I like to keep it simple. I don’t like to put too much on myself anymore.”
And, he says, “That’s how I feel right now.”
Does Sinh plan on maybe moving again? “Not any time soon. Right now, we’re settled for a while. At this moment, we’ll worry about what’s going on now. Let’s give this city what the city deserves, which is good food.”
People can book Sinh by going to “Sushi Jimmi” on Facebook and Instagram.
