Sushi is like manna unto me.

Went for sushi last night with some friends and friends of friends. Good times. It's hard to explain how comforting sushi is to me. I was a missionary in Japan for two years, and I love most things asian (strangely, I don't have a thing for asian girls, I must be defective) BUt I missed it when I came back to the states. It really got me down, like I had cut off a part of me and left it 7000 miles away. I was living in Utah, which not only doesn't have good sushi places... it doesn't have much in the way of good anything places. Being a poor student without a car eliminated the going to Salt Lake option. So I went home on Christmas break from school to Portland. My father offered to take me out for sushi. I picked out a promising looking place over in Beaverton. As it turned out, it was a kaiten zushi, the style of sushi bar with the conveyor belt where you take whatever looks promising. Nigiri, Maki, even little extras like prawn tempura and japanese style jello were on there. I ate my fill and found not only my stomach being filled, but another empty place inside of me. It's silly, but when I have sushi at a good place, it reminds me of being there.

Last night was no exception. The maguro (red ahi tuna) was particularly tasty. I always like taking people who are new to sushi becasue I know how great it is, but I also know how reluctant people are to try something new. I have a few basic things I tell people who are closeminded about it.

1) No, it's not all slabs of raw fish. Sushi means "with vinegared rice". Saying sushi is like saying "mexican food". It's a whole branch of cuisine, not a single dish. Many sushi dishes have cooked meat (anything with shrimp, prawn, scallop, crab, or lobster, for instance)

2) Try things and actually find out if you like it or not. Not even a japanese person likes it all. I don't like everything. For instance, I find lots of my friends like eel. It's barbequed and has a tangy sauce it's marinated in, which to me is a bit strong but most of my gaijin friends seem to like. This is the area that's the true mark of a person. If someone is willing to try new stuff, and not begrudgingly like Calvin being forced to eat a pasta dish he's unfamiliar with, they are someone I might get along with.

3) This is GOOD food! It's incredibly healthy, and even when you're loaded up full on it, you won't have the same near death feeling I usually get when I eat three or four cheeseburgers.