My Sushiography

I love eating sushi.

Beautiful grocery store sushi.

The first time I ever had sushi was in Boston. Ginza restaurant downtown. It was love at first bite. It was also my first taste of edamame. Amazing. Something about the combination of raw fish, vinegared rice, wasabi, pickled ginger, soy sauce... It makes my brain feel happy. What causes that? It's like this woozy, smiley place, and a feeling of being full, yet light.


After trying sushi at Ginza, I went occasionally to Porter Square on the red line to have slightly cheaper sushi as my student budget allowed. There was a weird mall with an Asian market and a couple of small sushi restaurants, like Bluefin, that I went to a few times a year.

Sushi sewing project kit I completed.

In grad school in the Florida panhandle, I discovered Publix grocery store sushi. I know it's not exactly authentic, but the fish was really fresh and the sushi was so cheap. I ate sushi a few times a week. There's nothing like a quiet lunch at home, watching TV and eating cold sushi, to recover from a tough morning of school work and classes.

Conveyor belt sushi on a vacation to San Francisco.

After Florida came the move to Los Angeles, one of the big sushi cities of the US. My husband and I tried strip mall sushi and fancier stuff, but all of our special occasions included what people like to mock as Valley sushi. The Ventura Boulevard, Studio City sushi restaurants come up with these crazy rolls that "real" sushi people abhor. Think shrimp tempura, masago and cucumber inside, spicy tuna and eel sauce on top. Crazy stuff. I just think it tastes yummy. At Sushi Dan, we would get plenty of plain sushi, but we'd always supplement that with this insane creamy mayo sauce bay scallop mixture poured over a California roll and topped with eel sauce. That thing still makes my mouth water!

The bay scallop California roll from Sushi Dan as take-out.

Once, we entered a sushi eating competition at a little strip mall sushi place called Sushi Mac. For $10 each, we got t-shirts and all the sushi we could eat in 10 minutes. For a few minutes we were on the leader board. And then the real sushi-eating competitors arrived. My husband ate 16 plates (32 pieces) and I ate 11 plates. It seemed like a lot, until the winner ate something like 50 plates. Oh well.

Sushi eating leader board, way early in the competition.

 Now, back in Florida, I don't have the budget for regular sushi outtings any more, and with young kids, it's harder than ever to go out anyway. Thankfully, we've found a buffet sushi option, Kyojin, that works for our occasional meals out. We can get in fast, feed the kids fast, and still have some decent food for ourselves.

I don't know where I may live in the future. I don't know if an actual trip to Japan is in the cards (though I hope it is!). But, I can't imagine ever honestly answering the question, "What are you in the mood for?" with anything other than, "SUSHI!"