See My Food?

Last night my husband and I joined a good friend who was celebrating her 40th birthday. As it was also our 11th wedding anniversary, it was a planned night of partying and good times. One of her friends chose a Japanese restaurant for all of us for dinner. I had a picture in my head of all of us seated around a grill with an Asian chef twirling and juggling knives as he deftly sliced and diced my chosen meal of either beef, chicken, or shrimp or a combination of all three.

The emphasis I would place on this image in my head is COOKED food.

Unfortunately, that image was quickly squashed when I realized that I was in a house of sushi. While we did gather around a table, a chef did not come out to thrill us with his knife dexterity or his cooking knowledge. Instead, a fisherman who'd reeled in his catch earlier plopped it down in the middle of our table. Where I am sad to say, my fellow tablemates sucked down these poor creatures like they were in an episode of Survivor, or worse, Fear Factor.

As much as I pride myself as one willing to try things, I draw the line at a meal that might up and walk off of my plate.

There was yellow-tail, tuna, salmon, and gasp, eel. Oh, and the octopus was on the menu as well, but no one signed up for that tasty dish. It was all wrapped in a beautiful bed of rice tied tightly with a rope of seaweed! Most of my tablemates opted to ignore the rice as some were on low carb diets. Instead, they slurped on the raw seafood in the middle and left the rice shell to sit forlornly on the plate.

To start things out, they served a soy-based soup with pieces of floating tofu and ended with a complimentary dish of birthday green wasabi ice cream. The smell alone was enough to kill me. When I want the scent of raw sea creatures, I prefer to be sitting in the sand on a private beach somewhere watching seagulls eat the sushi. It is a miracle that I was able to hold down my diet coke.

Thankfully, I was able to wash away the scent and the taste of my tempura (a sushi bar isn't exactly great at cooked food either) with a coconut creme pie martini from the bar we ended up at later in the evening. I went to bed, hungry. But what an exciting experience for my anniversary.

Happy 40th Birthday, Veronica! May you never meet a mermaid in the next 40 years of your life!