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?
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.”
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.”
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.”