I think that by and large, people's major hobbies and interests are ruled by which of their five senses they favor. You know, people who are very auditory will probably have huge music collections and often condescend to people because they listen to stuff you haven't even heard of yet, more highly visual people might flock to art - photography, painting, etc. and more tactile people might lean toward sports or other bodily endeavors. Myself, I've always kinda been a gustatory person. Food man, I love it. I love to make it, I love to eat it, I love to watch TV about it. And I've always prided myself on being one of those people who will try anything (and like our musically-inclined snobs, treat those plain-food eaters with haughty disdain). But there's always been one food that I have steered clear from, one food that, I'll admit, I was terrified by. Sushi.

When other people talked about sushi and how good it was, I had to rationalize it as a defect in THEM, not me, because I'm a food guy. Raw fish? Gross. I worked at Sea World for a summer, and I can tell you, raw fish is what we served to the animals. (I realize there are a lot of arguements that invalidate this point, but when you rationalize things for yourself, you tend to ignore logic.) Well, anyway after having Alli be after me about sushi for a while, I finally sacked up and went for it. We went to a sushi bar in Hillcrest - the Gay/International Food district (don't ask me how that works out... I have no clue how the owners of the Afghani or Indian restaurants deal with all the evil homosexual infidels that constantly flow through their tables...) Anyway, the restaurant was tastefully named "Nami" and prominently featured a large wave on the sign above it (Short for "tsunami" which I wonder if that didn't have anything to do with how empty it was in there...)

Yeah, I liked it. Yes, it was very good. Hell, I even got pretty good with chopsticks, which I regard as the most ridiculous and retarded way to eat food. (But MAtt, it's elegant! it's artful! It's goddamn frustrating. Gimme my fork and stabby-stabby!) I was expecting slimy, fishy... grossness. Instead I got firm, smoky goodness. Couple of things though - I definitely liked the nigiri (raw fish stacked on top of a ball of rice) better than the rolls. Something about seaweed that just doesn't do it for me. In the long run, it was good, and pretty cheap. I'm also stoked that I picked up new knowledge along the way, because pert of my fear was not knowing how to order. Now I can walk into most sushi bars with an idea of what I'd like.

Yes, I really just wrote a blog this long about sushi.
posted by MAtt D. at 10:28 AM