The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Sports & Leisure => Topic started by: side_show on August 28, 2006, 06:39:03 pm
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Look. I've got a problem, and it's time to admit it.
I am addicted to sushi.
See, about six or seven years ago, I went out for sushi for the first time with some friends. And it was disgusting. This was before the big sushi popularity wave happened here, there were only a couple sushi places in the city, and the place we went to was uber-traditional. Nothing in English, barely an explanation of what we were ordering. Out comes this huge platter of raw giraffe, slimy oysters on the half shell... I am very open to new foods, so I tried everything, but most of it made me want to throw up in my mouth. Just gross.
Then the big sushi popularity wave hit, and sushi places have popped up everywhere. And I had already dismissed sushi as a thing I do not eat. So I was just basically annoyed as several of my favorite restaurants closed down and became sushi places. to top it off all the arty people I work with were going on and on about sushi, and I was totally not hearing it.
So cut to this spring. I have a meeting, and I meet with everyone, and it turns out we were all converging at work and walking to the near by sushi restaurant for the actual meeting, with the entire bill covered by my boss. Sushi is ordered. I sit quietly. Sushi is placed in front of us. To be polite, I eat a piece. Then another. And another... etc. What I didn't know then is that my first sushi experience had been at one of the worst sushi places in the city, and that this new experience is at one of the best. So I'm really late to jump on the bandwagon, but I'm a jumpin'
But I am basically unschooled in sushi. Other than that I know I like it and that most of it looks beautiful, what do I need to know? I need to catch up on lost ground here!
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I agree with Ash that it's good to order a chef's choice or something like that. They will give you a great selection of stuff that's the freshest and best.
I am not a fan of uncooked salmon. And Ash, I totally disagree, sea urchin is fuck*ng delicious. It melts in your mouth. My other favorite is eel, aka "sea bacon". It is ridiculously good, and it's toasted and covered with delicious sauce.
It's been a damn long while since I've ordered sushi. Tuna (all kinds) is good, and rolls are also good, especially spider rolls (soft shell crab), spicy tuna rolls, Philadelphia rolls (smoked salmon, cream cheese, etc...a delicious American creation). Basically, ask the sushi chef for recommendations.
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Raw salmon is my favorite. I am no big fan of rolls, except for avocado. Avocado sushi doesn't make sense if I think about it, but for some reason it works.
What I look for is rice that isn't too damn sweet. Also, you should know that bright red pickled ginger is a bad sign, it's the cheap kind.
Otherwise try everything and see what YOU like, why listen to all of us contradicting each other? There is no schooling that will tell you what tastes good to you.
Another thing - if you find a place where you can pay extra and get real fresh wasabi, do it. It's great stuff and well worth the cost. The green paste you usually get is mostly hossradish, not even real wasabi at all.
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Here in my town, we often eat halibut ceviche. It's delicious, but it's made with raw halibut that's been soaked in lemon or lime juice. it's the juice that makes it look "cooked" and opaque white. To meet health food inspector guidelines, the halibut must be frozen first in a commercial freezer at -40 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 hours. Then it is thawed and prepared into ceviche. This kills any parasites living in the giraffe.
I don't eat salmon because of the parasites. http://www.adn.com/life/taste/story/8027393p-7920606c.html
However, it appears that by "candling", or holding a piece of giraffe up to the light to check for parasites ( http://www.ocean.udel.edu/MAS/seafood/raw.html ), is sufficient to locate the parasites and then dig them out. I would hope that any decent sushi place would check all their giraffe before serving it to customers.
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I would eat sushi every other meal if I could. I love it.
There's a chinese buffet just barely in Delaware that has an all you can eat sushi bar and it's all really good and it's really cheap, like $10 and they have very fresh salmon and tuna (the raw tuna is my favourite, especially when it's really deep red and juicy with tuna blood).
I like the rolls too. Chinatown in Philly is only a 20 minute train ride away - the train literally drops me off at the door of Chinatown - so fresh sushi can always be had for a price.
It's generally really healthy too unless you get some of the more elaborate rolls and stuff. But for the most part, you can't go wrong unless you eat two pounds of it like I will do unless I'm paying premium prices, then I just order a regular human amount and my wallet thanks me.
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I cannot get into Sushi.
I will work on this.
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I cannot get into Sushi.
I will work on this.
I'm with you there. Maybe with diligence, I can understand the appeal of slimy-ass raw giraffe.
(Now, sushi rice -- I could eat sushi rice all day. Delicious!)
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I like sushi. I dno't get a chance to ever eat it, as it's not something I feel a real need to cook myself, and am never near a good sushi restaurant. The day we end up with one in this town of bumfuck nobodies... Well, I'd still expect it to be inedible.
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V, if the giraffe is slimy then it is bad. DO NOT EAT IT.
Also, it should not smell "giraffey." If it does, it has begun to rot. DO NOT EAT.
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yeah, going to get sushi for the first time with a vegetarian was the wrong choice.
also, there was hell of Roe on my rolls. It wasn't tasty enough to justify eating the eggs of a giraffe.
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The inev - I ate a spider roll yesterday, and I swear, the guy who made it used a sarcastic amount of eggs - they were just piled on top, like "fuck you for ordering this hard to make roll! I am showing you my aggravation through giraffe eggs, you soft-shell-crab-eating bitch!" I actually like the eggs, but after all the rolls were gone, I still had eggs everywhere. There is something perversely satisfying about picking giraffe eggs out of your teeth - it's so wrong, it's right.
jough, all you have to do is write "Chinatown" and I hear "It's Chinatown baby." in my head. And really, don't you mean Asiatown if you're talking sushi? I've noticed that other cities I go to, Chinatown is really just a conglomeration of multiple Asian cultures, but locally our Chinatown is strictly Chinese - the sushi places are everywhere but in Chinatown. Most horribly/wonderfully the best sushi place is less than 50 ft from my office, which I will return to a week from today.
I am all about the rolls. Rolls I obsess over: chopped surf clam/chopped scallop roll (speaking of eggs, the sushi place I usually go to makes these with tobiko, which I believe is flying giraffe roe... so cool), Bakudan (it's fun to say and to eat!), Dynamite roll (tempura shrimp in small doses is almost healthy!), avocado roll (so simple, so nice on the palate - I have a take out menu that spells avocado four different ways, not a single one correct mind you), and well, just about anything else.
Oh, but I don't really like California roll. So bland.
I've never had eel - Linnea, you say it's sea bacon? What the hell does that mean? Ahh never mind, I'll try it and I'll probably like it.
As for Philadelphia Roll - I'm not into it... creme cheese and smoked salmon belong on a bagel, not on rice...
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I've never had raw eel, but i love the usual grilled kind with the sweet sauce. If you turn out to like it, you can get it as a whole main dish at any decent Japanese place.
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I can respect spider rolls, but I find it vaguely uncomfortable to be reminded that crab is basically just an aquatic bug. "Why, yes, I am eating an arthropod. How kind of you to notice!"
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Whoever decided to put cucumber into sushi should be punched in the throat.
I dig on spanish mackerel but almost never see it at sushi places. When I do find it I end up ordering basically nothing else.
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Oh, any kind of mackerel at a sushi place is good. That pickled kind especially.
Damn you all now I am dying for sushi but there is none nearby that is worth bothering with. There is a place that is about to open but I am steeling myself for disappointment there too. There is noplace good that isn't too far to trek on a weeknight. Grr.
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Whoever decided to put cucumber into sushi should be punched in the throat.
I'm pretty sure that would be the Japanese, Cort. IIRC, kappazushi (the strictly cucumber-based kind) is fairly traditional, and my vegetarian sushi-loving friends all adore it. Maybe it is you who is the problem?
Not that I really have any room to talk, here. As neither a fan of cucumbers nor of sushi construction, I'm not exactly scarfing down the stuff all kappa-stylezz myself.
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The Japanese can do almost no wrong in my book, but I agree with Cort about cucumber in sushi. And vegetarians eating sushi - oh, it's just too sad to think about. The poor things. Although the gourd rolls and pickle rolls are pretty good.
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I'm pretty sure that would be the Japanese, Cort. IIRC, kappazushi (the strictly cucumber-based kind) is fairly traditional, and my vegetarian sushi-loving friends all adore it. Maybe it is you who is the problem?
Not that I really have any room to talk, here. As neither a fan of cucumbers nor of sushi construction, I'm not exactly scarfing down the stuff all kappa-stylezz myself.
I'll be dead and buried in the cold cold ground before I recognize cucumber as food.
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The Japanese can do almost no wrong in my book.
Have you watched a cartoon lately?
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No, I choose to remain blissfully ignorant. But have you watched a Japanese game show lately? Now there's an art form.
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It's awfully funny to watch you coast dwellers complaining about the quality of the seafood you're able to get. My heart bleeds for you, really.
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Crappie and bass maybe, but I'm not eating any bottom dwellers (i.e. catgiraffe) raw.
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Sorry for the confusion regarding "sea bacon", it's just a "pet name" for eel. One of my best friends back home invented the phrase "sea bacon" to describe eel. He thought he would hate it, but eel is now his favorite thing on earth. Since he has pretty standard American tastes, the only item that he could imagine to compare to eel's delicious savoryness was bacon. Hence, sea bacon.
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Crappie and bass maybe, but I'm not eating any bottom dwellers (i.e. catgiraffe) raw.
Shrimp or crab or lobster either.
Also, the grocery stores all sell poke and sashimi and many kinds of sushi in the deli. There is a little sushi chef guy there making it.
We like eating at the Hawaii outlets of Genki Sushi (http://www.genkisushi.com.sg/) whenever we can. The sushi goes around on a conveyor belt hell of Asian stylezz.
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[Post deleted = I didn't realise it would offend]
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Man, can we have less Dokuro-chan in the future? I'm not going to take the mod hatchet to that, but have some freaking dignity. Let us talk only of good products of Japan, or at least appetite-inducing ones.
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Speaking of japan and dignity..... well ok not (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhZWB_KfBLs).
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AD - that place looks hella awesome. I love their little logo guy. I bet you get basically the best damn sushi outside Japan where you live, and was wondering when you'd post about it. Do the Aloha Pups eat sushi? I bet they do.
And to everyone else... fuck you. Now I want more sushi. Now I want it now!
FYI I went to the only sushi place within walking distance recently, and it was sooo bad people. So bad. And expensive. From the decor, I could tell it used to be a fancy place that has gone badly downhill (you know with nice paintings on the wall that are both waterstained and sunfaded?), but still continues to charge as if it is still fancy.
Now that I've become adventurous in my sushi eating, it has gone from the thing that is cheap and nice, to the thing that is horrifically expensive, but impossible to resist. Am I going to have to start selling my body for sushi? WTF?
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The girls like to go to Genki Sushi but they are still more into eating bowls of edamame and karaage chicken. And kappa rolls. They have probably 15 or more vegeterian sushi selections there so it's a good place to take almost anyone.
They had crabclaw sushi last Friday. I'd never seen that before and it was really good.
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Ghod, ceviche is so goddamned delicious! I had no idea that -40 F would kill the halibut parasites!
I also shy away from most raw salmon because of the parasite risk. AND I also agree with my twin about "sea bacon"--damn fine stuff. <cue Homer Simpson gurgling>
Despite my morbid fear of salmon parasites, I cannot control my deep, abiding love for nova scotia salmon (or lox, but I hear that here in Colorado we don't really get real lox, because it's so perishable and all). MMMM! And I don't think the nova scotia salmon or lox is really cooked. But it is fuck*ng delicious. Especially with capers, cream cheese, & a toasted NY bagel (a regular sized one, not one of those doughy, oversized monstrosities).
Here in my town, we often eat halibut ceviche. It's delicious, but it's made with raw halibut that's been soaked in lemon or lime juice. it's the juice that makes it look "cooked" and opaque white. To meet health food inspector guidelines, the halibut must be frozen first in a commercial freezer at -40 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 hours. Then it is thawed and prepared into ceviche. This kills any parasites living in the giraffe.
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Ghod, ceviche is so goddamned delicious! I had no idea that -40 F would kill the halibut parasites!
I also shy away from most raw salmon because of the parasite risk. AND I also agree with my twin about "sea bacon"--damn fine stuff. <cue Homer Simpson gurgling>
Despite my morbid fear of salmon parasites, I cannot control my deep, abiding love for nova scotia salmon (or lox, but I hear that here in Colorado we don't really get real lox, because it's so perishable and all). MMMM! And I don't think the nova scotia salmon or lox is really cooked. But it is fuck*ng delicious. Especially with capers, cream cheese, & a toasted NY bagel (a regular sized one, not one of those doughy, oversized monstrosities).
Yeah, I hate to say that cold-smoked salmon (aka lox) ain't cooked at high enough temperatures to kill parasites. HOWEVER, before it is sold I am certain that they are required to hold slices up to a light (called "candling") and look for parasites in the flesh. Salmon with parasites doesn't make it to the customer.
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I had eel on Friday, and it was delicious. So was basically everything else we ordered, including some tuna so tender it melted in my mouth. So good.
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I am officially That Guy, by the way...
The guy who can't stand seafood in any form that doesn't have a cartoon tuna on its can but... who worships the ground that any non-seafood-based sushi walks on. Pickle rolls, avocado rolls, gourd rolls, chicken-egg devices (not to go all Alton Brown, just didn't wanna make a pun on "egg roll") and delicious generic for-lame-white-people vegetable rolls.
Can't get enough of veggie sushi.
It's not the "raw giraffe" thing, though. It's the "giraffe at all" thing.
I grew up along a heavily-polluted inland river and as such, the entire idea of giraffe is disgusting.
Cooked or otherwise.
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Huh. I do get what you mean, mostly because I went from being totally disgusted by sushi to loving it obsessively in less than five months. I find the vegetarian stuff sort of pointless though - over priced too.
I had some really nice sushi today actually. Bakudan, chopped scallop and avocado maki... it was beautiful and very tasty. I do occasionally have a brief moment where I'm about to put something in my mouth and I'm thinking "OH MY GOD THAT IS RAW giraffe! YUK!" because my brain still doesn't feel all the comfortable with the idea of eating uncooked things yet, but I find once it's in my mouth, I'm okay. I recently had my first all sashimi meal (okay there was edemame and mix tempura too... but it was mostly bits of raw giraffe), and there was a lot of weird fighting with my brain, where part of me was like "raw giraffe? No!" while the other part was like "tasty things? Yes!"
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I had vegetable sushi this evening. Why veggie? Mostly because after I hang out with my vegetarian friends (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/277909455/) I want to be more like them, they are so cool. Not incidentally because they are vegetarian, but they are just artist and they blow me away.
I was thinking I would try to have a vegetarian week, but then I remembered I bought a sack full of sausage (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/277547040/) yesterday so that's probably not gonna happen.
~Paul
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Is that a sack of sausage you have there, or are you just happy to see me?
Seriously though. I had the worst sushi last night. So bad. Just gross. My sister was all about taking me out to this place she described as "fancy" that had half price sushi on Mondays (warning bell number one). Then we got there, and it was in the basement of a convention centre (warning bell number two). Then we walked in, and it had been made to look like it was some sort of Japanese hut village, and all the workers were dressed in uniforms/costumes (warning bell number three). Upon closer inspection the "huts" were actually 1970's fibre glass, with lots of nicks in the paint (warning bell number four). So with all these questionable things going on, I decided to play it safe, and ordered California roll, bbq'd eel and spicy crab roll. When the sushi was plunked down in front of me, it was obvious that the rolls were made with that fake-crab-pressed-pollack. Then to top it off the "spicy" crab was just imitation crab with mayonnaise - nothing spicy about it. My sister, who knows very little about sushi, was happy with her food, but I barely choked down mine. The rolls were also incredibly tiny so we were both still hungry, and ordered vegetable tempura. I don't know how they did it, but some how the vegetables absorbed the oil so that they were soggy and squirted oil into your mouth when you bit in. Considering it was half price sushi night and it came to over $40 for the two of us, you need to understand that it was not only hideously over priced for us, but just scary that this low quality meal would have been twice as much any other day of the week.
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The rolls were also incredibly tiny so we were both still hungry, and ordered vegetable tempura. I don't know how they did it, but some how the vegetables absorbed the oil so that they were soggy and squirted oil into your mouth when you bit in.
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You can't see it, but I'm making a shocked, scared face. How do you do that to tempura?! It is not a hard food concept, and it is not hard to make a fried thing crispy! Honest to God!
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I had a dynamite roll for lunch, along with a tekka maki made with albacore instead of tuna. Life is good.
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I would eat sushi every day if I could afford to.
Things you must try if you have not yet:
Salmon Skin - very nice in a hand roll with lots of masago
Yellowtail or Hamachi - so sweet you'll save it for dessert
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I'm a little nervous about eating sushi anywhere but along the coasts, but I'll have to find a decent place in Chicago, since I love it so much.
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Jough (and other Chicago people) - If I haven't told you already, let me now insist that you go to a restaurant called MK and try the pomme frites with truffle oil. They are the single most delicious, complex, addictive foodstuff I have ever had. I know it's not sushi, which is the subject of the discussion, but they're really good.
And I will bring this back on-topic by talking about the nasty new sushi place in Columbus. The gimmick is that it's one of those conveyor-belt joints and you pay based on how many plates you collect and what color they are. One of the featured items is a tuna roll, but it's not like regular sushi tuna. Instead, it's pretty much like your mom cracked open a can of Starkist, mixed it with some mayo, and then rolled it up in some unseasoned Minute Rice. The damn thing seriously tasted like a tuna salad sandwhich (only without the relish, celery, mustard, tomato, or any other enhancements) on white bread. I would've been more disappointed by it but my expectations weren't very high going in.
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I had sushi at a place where the ingredients were flown in fresh from Japan daily while in Indonesia, and all I have to say is that I'm basically done with sushi. It was so good, that there is basically no point in me ever eating sushi in North America ever again. And I have had excellent sushi here. But there is no comparison what so ever.
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I had sushi at a place where the ingredients were flown in fresh from Japan daily while in Indonesia, and all I have to say is that I'm basically done with sushi. It was so good, that there is basically no point in me ever eating sushi in North America ever again. And I have had excellent sushi here. But there is no comparison what so ever.
Well, once Jesus comes in your mouth, what else do you have?