2006-07-07

Adventures in Dining

After a long day of working a trade show booth (a very slow NECC (who ever thought it would be a good idea to start a trade show the day after a holiday?)), assorted fish, rise, and sake sounded like a great idea.

We went to Taka Sushi in the Gaslamp district of San Diego. The miso was good. The eel rolls and spicy tuna rolls were amazing.

The sake sampler I had was an interesting experience. I tried sake once before; I bought a bottle at Costco. Somehow that wasn't the best experience. But the sampler was a great introduction to this world renowned beverage. Three different sakes looked identical - like big shots of vodka - but the flavor and texture with each one was unique. Sweet and fruity for some; smoky and rich on others.

The big adventure though, was the shrimp sashimi. Tim order it and the waitress said all they had left was the live shrimp so Tim said ok. None of us really knew what that meant, but we were up for the adventure.

It was dead when it came to the table -- mostly.

(You can see the eye on the left side by the lemon.)

The bodies were separate from the head, deveined, and raw. Naturally, it was perfectly fresh. It had a subtle flavor and a soft texture. Granted it's a little odd to eat a critter's body while it looks at you.

And the heads weren't entirely dead. Every few moments a leg would twitch in the breeze. Then someone at the table went to pick up one of them a suddenly it responded. All the legs and antennae starting twitching like a stadium full of people having a seizure while performing the YMCA.

It was trying to climb off the tray. The manly men that we are, we all jumped and squeaked. Then it stopped moving again, except for the occasional twitch.

I've never had dinner try to run away before. I probably would not recommend it to sushi neophytes. You kind of have to work up to the things that are still crawling. Or at least have a lot of sake samplers.

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