Accidental omakase
I didn’t intend to have fancy sushi on Saturday night.
It all started when my usual cat cafe was unexpectedly closed for veterinary visits. I’d been looking forward to some cat time, so I desperately searched on Google for an alternative. Fortunately, I found one just ten minutes away (Luana’s, which proved adequate but less charming than Pfft).
But those ten minutes were ten minutes closer to home, so I didn’t want to backtrack in order to stick to my original dinner plans. Back to Google: any well-regarded sushi on the way home? There were two promising candidates. When I stuck my head in at the first, they insisted they were full. Losing hope but determined to get some raw fish into my stomach, I trudged to the second and opened the shoji screen door. Shitzureishimasu. Hitoridesu. (Sorry to interrupt. Table for one?) The chef seemed momentarily startled but gestured for me to sit down at the bar. Success!
I breathed a sigh of relief and took a look around. This place looked nice. A tiny sushi bar. Two harried apprentices scuttling about. Wasabi root being grated in front of my eyes.
I soon found out that the chef was as committed to service as to food. He had a Western guest and he was going to present her each piece of fish in English — even though he didn’t speak a word of it. He bullied one of his apprentices into giving up his smartphone and kept Google translate on the screen the whole meal. There’d be a frantic discussion every time it didn’t yield a plausible translation. My attempt to insist that I knew Japanese fish names, that they didn’t need to work themselves up trying to find the English word for tai (seabream/snapper), fell on deaf ears.
As the meal progressed and the parade of dishes continued, I started to worry. Not about the food: that was amazing. Sea eel, presented both with eel sauce and merely lightly salted. A bowl of sweet crab. Shrimp, cooked and raw. Some of the best tuna I’ve tasted. Abalone. A little rice bowl with salmon roe. Each dish was better than the last. But as the pace showed no sign of slowing, I did some mental benchmarking. In San Francisco, this experience would easily be $200–250. I was only carrying the equivalent of $110 USD in cash. I might be okay, just barely — or I might need to embarassedly stammer excuses and make a run to an ATM upon being presented with the bill.
My fretting was unnecessary. I left the restaurant very full, pleased with the quality and variety of sushi, and just 6500 yen (~$65 USD) poorer. At that price, I might be back!
Sushi restaurant: 元. Address: 1–12 Chūōchō, Kita-ku, Okayama, 700–0836. Phone: 086–227–3377
