Sushi!!

I have been very glad to have friends that have kept my mind off of obsessing over whether I passed or failed my boards.  This weekend was just what I needed to rejuvenate and get ready for my last quarter at OSU.  It was General Conference weekend where all our wonderful church leaders and Prophet gave talks to us.  I had the opportunity to go out to Utah last October with my ST and another best friend of mine and although it was not the same watching it at home I was still fortunate enough to spend Saturday watching Conference with three close and wonderful friends of mine.  My sister was so sweet to make the four of us breakfast before the first session.  


Later that day a group of us went down to the Short North where I got to experience Sushi for the first time.  My sister has always been telling me that I needed to try it at least one time so I figured I would give it a whirl.  We went to Haiku and as we were walking to the restaurant there was this terrible stench from the outside near the patio as we were walking in and I asked if that is what it smells like, it smelled like a sewer.  My sister got a great chuckle out of teasing me telling me that was the smell of sushi.  I was glad that I was not the only one there that has never tried sushi, although she does have an allergy to seafood which gives her a legitimate excuse. :)  We were looking at the menu and I had no idea what a sushi roll even meant.  I ordered three of them because I wanted to try a variety of them.  I ordered a teriyaki salmon roll, a california roll, and a dragon ball.  It kind of took our food a long time to come out but one of us got these lettuce rolls and seaweed that was delicious.  It made me excited to taste the food we all ordered.  


In the meantime while waiting, I got to practice using chop sticks which is not as easy as it looks.  I went to pick up some seaweed with them and maybe got two little strings of it.  The rolls finally arrived and I absolutely loved the teriyaki salmon roll, it tasted even better when my sister told me to dip it in some soy sauce.  I did not like the california roll and the dragon ball I could not even keep in my mouth, maybe I just do not have a taste for eel.  I tried one of my friends dragon roll that was surrounded by avocado but needless to say I just liked the avocado around it.  I could eat only about half of it and then put the other half "discretely" back on my sisters plate.  


One thing I noticed about using chopsticks is that you can't really cut with it.  There was absolutely no way I could shove a whole piece of dragon ball in my mouth so I was trying to cut it with the chopstick but found myself stabbing it instead.  Also its hard to pass food across the table using chopsticks.  I was trying to pass over one of my dragon balls to my girlfriend and I had a hard time carrying it over to the other side of the table to give it to her.  Although I was not using the chopsticks the right way, my sister was laughing at me because I had one chopstick in each hand.  However, even though I was using them weirdly, I managed to get an entire piece of sushi roll to the other side of the table perfectly intact while my sister, the chop stick police tried taking one from my plate and it fell apart... hmmm... its all about technique I guess.  I was then told to try the ginger on my plate but I do not like the taste of ginger but due to peer pressure I gave in and tried it and let me say the instant it hit my tongue I had to spit it out.  I did not even dare try the green goop next to it that I heard was really hot.  

To top things another situation happened.  My girlfriend who is allergic to seafood made her allergies clear to the waitress when she ordered her chicken and rice.  After receiving her rice a bunch of us were eating from it since there was probably a pound of rice sitting on the table on this plate.  The waitress came back and informed her that the rice may have been contaminated and asked if she had eaten any of it, luckily she had not.  However, the waitress at first did not clearly define what contaminated meant so all of us that ate from it thought she meant contaminated with E coli or some other bacteria until she said contaminated with seafood.  She brought her an entire new plate of rice, it was like a bottomless pit of rice.  After we were done eating the waitress informed us that it was her first week of work and how sorry she was about the delay of our food arrival especially the one yam roll ordered by another girlfriend which she said the restaurant would cover.  That was really nice of them, but why didn't they offer to pay for the contaminated rice that could have really harmed my friend???  


To make up for it all she brought us ice cream and dough balls.  At first I just thought it was ice cream and I was confused when I stuck the spoon in the bowl and a huge ball stuck to the spoon.  However it was delicious!!!  Not as good as Jeni's though that I was excited to get later.  They made me taste that green goop right after ice cream to make my first sushi experience a complete one.  Once again giving into peer pressure I went against my better judgement and right after I had the sweet refreshing taste of ice cream in my mouth.  I tasted a piece of this goop smaller than pea size and I can't even describe the horrible horrible hotness of it.  My girlfriend had an antidote ready for me the last remaining spoonful of ice cream.  It helped a little but I almost wanted to lick the bowl for the last bit of ice cream to further get rid of the taste.  


I did get to taste Lavender Gum after that a girl got from Mexico, very neat flavor.  


After all of us went over to the Gallery Hop which was packed probably because this was the first really nice weekend they have had for it since last year.  Very interesting things we saw such as plates that when hung side by side created a skeleton, a gold skull, a wall full of this artwork that seemed to be representing various versions of male parts that one of my friends couldn't stop looking at.  I'm telling ya eating a green tea ball, looking at the wall of male parts and wanting to go wine tasting... may have to counsel her ;)  

The one sad thing is we did not get Jeni's... the wait would have been worth it but the line was around the corner.  

Gist of this extremely long post, I would try sushi again it was fun and a change from anything I ever tasted before and I will be getting Jeni's sometime this week to satisfy the craving!!