Au contraire. The difference is that I’m not intruding on their dining experience. Seeing a pad of rice marinating in a soy bowl grates on me like fingernails on a chalkboard, but I don’t actually lean over and tell the person to stop doing it … that would be rude. Quite a different thing than criticizing someone’s choice of fish in mid-bite.
Point taken.
I’m still really mad at you for creating this sushi fervor in me. Fine. I’m off to go find a sushi bar. Will report back on wasabi-inflicted injuries.
Reminds me of a convo I had with my mom once. I’d bought her a Frappuccino at Starbucks and she was commenting on the brain freeze. She said the only thing that was worse was the effect of too much wasabi at once, and asked whether that would qualify as brain burn. I prefer to think of it as nasal napalm.
There’s a place on Santa Monica Boulevard that serves real wasabi. The chef there is a purist … no foofy rolls, no fake crab, no avocado. He also serves the fish on warm rice, something I’ve never had anywhere else but it’s very good.
The real wasabi looks a lot like grated horseradish. It’s off-white, not green, and more watery and less pasty. The flavor is milder too – not the tongue-searing intensity of the processed stuff.
They also serve natural pickled ginger. It’s not pink!
Whatever Tojo’s culinary merits, I’m glad to learn that the California Roll wasn’t invented in California.
Faux sushi for wimps is what I’ve always considered the CA roll.
Is it Tenjin between Barrington and Federal? I live around the corner–I’ll meet you for lunch.
Oh wait…I’m at work in El Segundo ( :smack: ). That won’t work.
How is it “faux” sushi? It meets the main criterion of seasoned rice, does it not? Popular and approachable does not equal fake. I only like the california roll when it’s comprising the lower half of a Dragon Roll, myself, but no need to look down your nose at it just because it’s often a “gateway roll” for newcomers to sushi.
Oh, and it’s so named for the inclusion of avocado, just so everyone knows, not for its place of origin.
No, it’s further west, actually in Santa Monica itself. I can’t remember the name of it. It’s on the second floor of the minimall across the street from the Smart & Final.
I usually go to Sen Ju on Santa Monica at Yale. It’s a bit of a hole in the wall, but within walking distance of my office.
I also go to Kiriko a lot. It’s in the conference center at the corner of Sawtelle and Olympic.
Is Tenjin good? I’ve driven past it a lot and noticed that it looked crowded, but I’ve never tried it.
My favorite local sushi restaurant once served a BLT roll, with tempeh, lettuce, and tomato, as a sly commentary on the California roll. My friend who waited tables there told me that plenty of people ordered it . . . once.
Point taken about how you don’t complain to people’s faces about their eating habits; nonetheless, I think it’s an absurd thing to get upset over. Even if sushi weren’t fast food in Japan, where people eat it after a night of drinking, and eat it any old sloppy way they feel like eating it, it’d still be an absurd complaint.
I should eat my food the way I like it. If I prefer my sushi dipped in ketchup and washed down with Orange Soda, that’s nobody’s business but my own. Why would you get upset over someone enjoying their food the way they like it: shouldn’t that please you?
Daniel
Your impeccable source aside, I think I’ll continue to do it my way. If your middle-aged waitress doesn’t like it, she can come out here and tell me. 
I agreed. I’m sick to death of sushi snobs. Typically they’re as white as me, and when they were growing up they wouldn’t know maki from macaroni any better than the bluest collar dude who can’t eat anything more raw than batter-coated deep-fat-fried cod with chips. Get off it: It can be haute cuisine, or it can be a yummy snack, and anything in between. I’ve eaten out with plenty of Japanese folks at Sushi places (Fugakyu in Coolige corner is a perennial fave, and the one in Sudbury is just as nice…Ginza is great for sushi, but maybe better for shabu shabu…Umi in the Fenway is a fun little hole in the wall to go with people) and if they don’t give a shit how I eat it, why in the fuck should you, asshole?
I went to junior high with a guy who liked to mix everything in his plate into a gray slurry before eating it. The fact that he enjoyed it didn’t keep the rest of us from thinking it was gross.
Watching someone make a soup out of soy sauce, rice and fish bits has the same effect on me, albeit on a smaller scale.
And with the wasabi thing, what bugs me isn’t someone who likes a lot of wasabi. It’s someone who acts as though the meal is a wasabi-eating competition. I’ve had lunch with people who approach sushi like an extreme sport: “Whooo … look at how much I’m putting on NOW! Boy, my eyes are watering!”
People do that with Buffalo wings. Hot wings are an extreme sport, and unlike the atomic nose blast you get from wasabi, the pain from thermonuclear wings eats the flesh out of your oral cavity for an hour, and then pours like magma out the other end come the following morning.
Tell the wasabi-jocks they’re lightweights.
Again, if the pleasure someone gets out of sushi-eating is showing their manliness by eating wasabi, that’s no skin off my nose; in fact, I’ve watched those yahoos at sushi restaurants and been entertained by them.
Myself, I like a good wasabi headrush: generally I’ll eat more and more wasabi on my sushi until I get at least one piece that causes me to tear up in pain for a few moments, because the resulting endorphin kick is pretty wonderful.
It’s no skin off my nose if you don’t like that, but it’s absurd for you to be upset at my enjoying my food.
Daniel
You know, I’ve always approached eating out as something to do for pleasure, not as an extreme sport. But hey, live and let live.
In fact, for those that are into “eating as an extreme sport”, might I suggest a competition where they eat the ultra-hottest-hot buffalo wings covered in the ultra-hottest-hot wasabi and dipped in the ultra-hottest-hot habañero salsa? Maybe they can televise it on the food channel to tap into the Iron Chef fans.
I wouldn’t call myself a connaisseur of sushi, but I think it’s good. FWIW they don’t serve it in a roll usually, but rather it’s just the fish and a bit of rice held together with a seaweed belt. Actually, I prefer sashimi.
I once got to taste real wasabi, and if you thought the faux stuff was addicting, you ought to try the real McCoy. I can’t describe it well, but it was less searing, more complex, and had the most delectable nuttiness at the finish - almost like toasted hazelnuts.
It was at Toomi Sushi in San Jose, BTW.
Dude, that’s sick. Not the fact that you’re discussing real dolls in and of itself, but the fact that you’re discussing how to clean one after each of your male friends has had a turn. :eek:
I think you guys need to organize a SushiDope in L.A. That’d be enough of a reason to get me up there. Then you can teach me all about sushi and the proper way to eat it!
Well thanks to this thread, I found Azusa of Japan just down the block, and had a great lunch yesterday. 9.75, and it was a ton of food (miso soup, the most phenomenal nuggets of fried chicken, teriyaki salmon, and 8 pieces of california roll).
Sushi craving sated. For now. No one bump this thread for a while, hey.