Day 12 – This Isn’t Coors Light

I grew up eating pretty much only American food. My mom cooked and cooked well, but we were not a very adventurous eating family. So I wasn’t really exposed to many “exotic” foods. You know, like Chinese food. And vegetables. Luckily I married Ann and she has really broadened my horizons. I’ll eat most vegetables. Love Chinese food. And besides some things that don’t like me, I’ll at least try most things these days. Except sushi.

I have always eaten seafood and love it. But there has always been something about sushi that has kind of scared me. I think I may have had something sushi-ish when I was much younger and of course did not like it (then again, I didn’t like anything when I was younger) and I have never tried it since. So, in honor of getting outside of my comfort zone, I decided to have sushi today. And I didn’t want to have just wimpy sushi, I wanted to go for it. So, I enlisted my sushi expert friend Jeannie and her husband Eddie and they took me to Miyako in La Habra, because Jeannie has known the sushi man there forever.

As we got there, Eddie was explaining what we were going to be eating. He used beer as an analogy. He said that with people who love beer, they will usually introduce people to beer with something light. Then you work your way up through liking darker beers. Then he explained that the sushi that we were going to have wasn’t Coors Light. Is was more like a dark Belgian IPA. This was real sushi. I was excited… and a bit terrified.

It seemed like Eddie ordered a bit of everything. Then it started coming out in waves. This was the first plate that arrived.

On this plate, we had blue fin tuna, salmon, red snapper, yellowtail, mackerel, and albacore. It was pretty awesome having Jeannie and Eddie there with me because they explained what everything was going to taste like and how to eat it. They let me know which ones I probably wasn’t going to like (the mackerel was pretty fishy tasting) and which ones were milder (the tuna was quite good). I made a deal with myself that I would try anything and everything, though I requested nothing spicy because spicy foods often do not like me very much these days. I also tried some pickled ginger to cleanse my palate (wow that’s strong!), some pickled radishes, and two kinds of seaweed.

I was doing pretty well and everything was pretty good. I wouldn’t say that I loved any of it, but none of it was scary at all. The mackerel was a little bit fishy tasting, but not bad by any means. I thought this was totally easy. Then came the second plate…

Here is a picture of the awesome Eddie and Jeannie with the scary plate on the right. Two of the three things on the plate were actually two of my favorites. The mini scallops (on the right) were quite good. And the tamago (on the left) was what they had me eat last because they were sure that I’d like it. But the thing in the middle. The brown goo. Jeannie said that it was uni – which sounds so innocent. Then she explained that it is sea urchin – which sounds a little grosser. Jeannie says that it’s her favorite. It must be an acquired taste. Actually the taste wasn’t that bad. It was the texture (which Jeannie did warn me about). It was a little too salty and slimy for my liking. Here’s a picture play by play of me eating it for your viewing pleasure (click to see bigger pics).

Don’t worry, I got it all down OK.

Thankfully, we had the sweet egg (tamago) saved for last because that was actually really good. Even Eddie and Jeannie weren’t really sure how it qualifies as sushi since it is egg… and cooked… but I didn’t mind. It helped get the taste/texture of the sea urchin out of my mouth. I thought that this was going to be the end of our sushi experience, but Jeannie had one more surprise for me. She asked me if I was up for something else. I said sure, and this is what came out…

Yep, shrimp so fresh that their heads were still moving. Thankfully they take the heads away before you eat it. I’m not sure that I could have eaten the poor shrimp’s tail while its head was wiggling and obviously looking at me. The tail was OK. The taste was fine, but the texture was a little bit different. When the waitress took the shrimp heads away, Jeannie talked to the waitress in Korean, so I had no idea what she said. Then a couple minutes later, the heads reappeared (this time fully dead) fried in tempura batter. Somehow I forgot to take a picture, which is a serious bummer because they looked terrifying. I actually laughed when I saw them. You could still see the bumps there the eyes were through the batter… But I ate a good bit of it. And anything that is fried in tempura tastes good. A little bit crunchy, but pretty good and a pretty awesome way to end our sushi experience.

Takeaway for the Day:

When you try something new, go with a guide. I had so much fun eating terrifying things that I would not have dared try on my own. And it was so nice to have Jeannie and Eddie explaining what things were going to taste like so I knew what to expect. Their awesomeness turned this into a really fun lunch, and now I don’t have to be afraid of sushi anymore.