Masu no Sushi / ますのすし

Best-of Masu no Sushi / 特選 ますのすし

I found Masu no Sushi, one of my local dishes (I'm from Toyama prefecture in Japan) in Isetan Shinjuku.
In Tokyo, I rarely saw it or I might not have tried hard enough to find one.

"Masu" is trout in English.
"no" means "of" and it sounds like "sushi of masu" in English if you see the title, but as "no" here works as adjective, it's basically means "sushi of masu/trout" in English.

In Toyama airport, you can find squared and rice ball sized Masu no Sushi, but I think it's mainly for the travelers who are about to take a flight.

The one I'm used to eating is regular Masu no Sushi, but it was out of stock in the evening so that I got blue-ribbon Masu no Sushi (特選ますのすし) instead.

Masu no Sushi, a Toyama's national dish, is made of rice from Toyama, fatty trout, vinegar, and wrapped with bamboo grass, then stored in a round wooden chip box.

Seasoning is really simple.
They apply salt to fatty trout to keep the flavor and taste in.
Vinegar is their original blend and it has sourness and sweetness.
Bamboo grass is all domestic and natural leaves, which gives green flavor to the sushi.
Wooden box is one of the important aspects for this sushi.
Wooden box allows air to pass through easily and absorbs excess humidity, at the same time, it holds adequate moisture inside.
At last, they bundle up the case with rubber band and green bamboo log so that it can give some pressure and trout and rice can blend in well.

I couldn't tell the difference from the regular and this special (and more expensive one), but according to the homepage, they use fattier trout for this. 
However it's fattier trout, it doesn't get me sick and still reminds me of my hometown.

The rice was pressed hard so that it can hold trout well and easy to pick it up after cutting and picking it up without getting it falling apart.
Trout had some lemon-ish, citrus flavor and didn't have oily flavor at all.
The bamboo leaves' flavor was definitely mixed into both rice and trout, which is normal to me to have it but some may find it strange.

On the back side of the package, there's a short story how Masu no Sushi became famous and local dishes of Toyama.
"In 1717, Mr. Shipachi Yoshimura, a Toyama clan, used trout which was going upstream in Jinzu-river and also rice from the land to create Masu no Sushi. It was brought to the 8th shogun, Yoshimune Tokugawa. Yoshimune is well-known as gourmet person and he really loved this Masu no Sushi, since then this dish became popular and traditional to be sent to Edo from Toyama, where deep-snow Tateyama mountains are standing in between."