It’s not impossible to find in the middle of Mexico but it’s definitely not easy. Don Day is talking about fish that can be savored in its cleanest and most elegant form, sushi grade fish.

Lack of sustainability has taken away Don Day’s favorite fish for sushi style dishes, the bluefin tuna but Don Day’s second best favorite, the yellowfin, still gets a thumbs up from most guides (Greenpeace International being the exception). Don Day goes by the Audubon Guide which says that yellowfin is OK for Don Day. The yellowfin, often called ahi in sushi bars and called atun claro here in Mexico, is also much more suitable for Don’s blue collar budget than bluefin.

There is one restaurant in San Miguel de Allende that does a superb job with yellowfin, as it does with virtually anything that the chef, Donnie Masterton, sends out of the kitchen. That’s The Restaurant at Sollano 16. Their tuna tartare with avocado, sesame and soy-wasabi dressing ranks up near the very top of Don Day’s Wife’s greatest hits list.

Luckily for Don Day, he also enjoys another source for his yellowfin yearnings, the little woman herself (I can only get away with calling her that because she just dropped 25 pounds), Don Day’s Wife, also does amazingly tasty things with raw tuna.

The most recent occasion was a game of Texas Hold ’em as part of our friend Liliane’s exit from her fifties week in San Miguel. Liliane has an image of being overly aggressive at the poker table, letting cry with her customary “Oh, what the hell!” when she calls your re-raise. Somehow though, she always ends up with a condo development of blackies (our most expensive chip) in front of her when Ol’ Grey Eyes (you can guess who that is) starts murdering “The Party’s Over”.

Don Day had reeled in a few of the local big fish (gamblers don’t read food blogs do they?) for the shark to attack so raw tuna seemed apropos as a nibbley that we could eat at the table without missing one precious deal.

Don Day’s source for yellowfin tuna is the source for virtually everything we buy that swims. It’s La Isla in Colonia Guadelupe. They bring in fresh fish from Ensenada twice a week and Don Day heartily recommends getting on Miguel Angel Munoz’ mailing list to check each week’s arrivals list.

Now, despite La Isla‘s fish being the freshest you can buy in San Miguel, the yellowfin we bought on Saturday from La Isla was not fresh; it was frozen. That’s something we occasionally have to live with when we live 1,000 plus miles from the ocean (I haven’t been able to source a fresh shrimp in San Miguel in years). There is a Don Day rule, however, that I will share with you that might help you decide whether or not to buy frozen or whether to only buy fresh. It’s called the flaky or firm rule and it’s very simple. Fish with flaky flesh becomes a little mushy or spongey when it’s thawed; fish with firm flesh doesn’t. So, if it’s something like cod or haddock, I only buy fresh; if it’s swordfish or yellowfin tuna, then frozen is fine.

Now Don Day’s flaky or firm rule also applies to women but if he shared with you the intricacies of the coding system, Don Day’s Wife would simply delete them when she edits his post and checks for anything unsuitable for a general audience.

So what did Don Day’s Wife make with the yellowfin tuna? Well Don Day carefully watched what she did and, as his memory is as sharp as an extremely dull tack, he made notes so he could share them with you but, before he does that, he’s going to pass the keypad to her as she’s better at getting the exact quantities of the ingredients correct. You’ll recognize the change when you see the red nail polish.

Don Day’s Wife’s Tuna Tartare

This recipe is for a 10 ounce piece of tuna and feeds eight as a starter.

Yellowfin tuna
1 small onion (cebollito) or 2 green onions (scallions). If you’re using a small Mexican onion, use all the white and about half of the green.
A handful of cilantro, stems removed
About a dozen mint leaves
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
1 tablespoon of mirin
2 teaspoons of wasabi (in paste form from a tube)
The juice of half a lime
1 teaspoon of lime zest
1 avocado

Before I start telling you what Don Day’s Wife did, let me tell you (by the way, this is Don Day again) that the weirdo ingredients, the sesame oil, the mirin and the wasabi, are all available at San Miguel’s supermarket, Mega. I know because sometimes Don Day’s Wife makes me spend hours scouring this town for weirdo ingredients.

OK. The first thing Don Day’s Wife did was chop up the tuna into pieces about half the size of the cubes that come in a set of liar’s dice (note from Don Day’s Wife: That’s about a centimeter). She told me, “If you don’t have a great knife, it’s better to cut the tuna when it’s still a little bit frozen and firmer.” She also told me if there are any “icky bits”, scrape the “good stuff” off and discard the bits. She then placed the chopped up tuna in the fridge with a bit of cello wrap on top.

The next thing Don Day’s Wife did was put everything else but the avocado in this cute little gizmo called a mini chopper. She also told me that I had to mention that she was only using a “lousy Taurus” (something she has also called Don Day as he was born in late April) because there wasn’t room in the suitcase (that should be two suitcases compared to Don Day’s one) for her KitchenAid when they came down to Mexico. She also said to say that “a food processor could be used” or everything could be chopped up finely by hand.

The next step was to dice the avocado into cubes, the same size as the tuna. I should point out how impressed I was when Don Day’s Wife simply ran a knife around the middle of the avocado lengthwise and then took a half in each hand and with a twist, the pit just fell out. It still amazes me how clever she sometimes is.

The next part, she told me, you should do in a hurry so that the avocado doesn’t turn brown and the tuna doesn’t “overcook”. You take the tuna out of the fridge, toss the avocado in the bowl, pour the stuff in the mini chopper over it, give everything a little stir, and let it marinate together for five to ten minutes. Much longer than that, and the tuna will lose its nice firm texture.

So how swimmingly popular was Don Day’s Wife’s tuna tartare with the crowd when we got some cards in the air and it was brought to the table? Well Cliff used the word “amazing”. Matty looked like she couldn’t get enough. Jack took three major mouthfuls in the few seconds it took him to speculate that the word “tartare” came from the Cossacks. And “I don’t eat sushi” Lorainna was spied scraping the remnants from the bowl.

And who else, beside the yellowfin tuna, was a big winner at the poker table? The shark of course, the soon-to-be-sixty Liliane.

The Restaurant is located at Sollano 16 in Centro, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It’s open Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday from Noon to 10:00 pm and Thursday, Friday and Saturday from Noon to 11:00 pm.

La Isla is located at Maria Grever 5 in Colonia Guadalupe. To get onto Miguel’s weekly catch list, email him at naturalygourmet@gmail.com.