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Dad's in West Virginia with the local parish, working on the annual poverty relief project. My sister's married and living with her husband. It's just Mom and me at home this week. Yesterday was hot, humid, more hot, and more humid, so neither of us much wanted to cook. The local Malaysian restaurant was not open on Mondays (it was something of a surprise that Mom wanted to try it - she hadn't seemed much impressed with the beef dish I got from them a while back), so we figured we'd try a local restaurant that would have been impossible to visit with my dad: Yuki Hana Sushi and Japanese Restaurant. It's a nice place, very quiet on Monday nights, but neither I nor my mother is nearly as familiar with Japanese food as we would've liked. In Mom's case it's been for lack of decent restaurants nearby- she said she hadn't had real Japanese food since she was my age. In my case it's been because when I have money for restaurant food, the Japanese restaurants near my office just can't convince me to come and try them instead of stopping at one of the local Chinese places instead.
Mom was a little put off by the flavour of the miso soup, but when I tried it there was nothing wrong. She just didn't like the taste all that much. The salad that came ahead of her meal was a startle for her as well, as the dressing was mostly ginger and Mom really doesn't like ginger. Fortunately her appetizer, age dashi tofu, was exactly how she remembered it from a recent visit to Aunt K.'s - the family had ordered Japanese there, and Mom had tried some of it and rather liked the fried tofu. Myself, I got beef sashimi, which is only a little thicker than beef carpaccio and seared on the outside but raw within. Rather liked it.
Then came the main dishes. Mom got lobster teriyaki, which meant a plate of big ol' lobster tail action and ornately carved lemons and white sesame seed garnish. Me? I'd ordered the wasabi roll. The description had said deep fried rolls of white fish, crab, and salmon (not sure on that last - it might've just been white fish and crab) in the chef's wasabi sauce. I assumed, given that this was on a menu with things like Pikachu Roll and Godzilla Roll, that I was ordering from the Give The Gaijin Stuff That Won't Scare Them Away section of the menu. Wasabi sauce, I reasoned, was probably ponzu-based but heavily laced with wasabi.
Wrong.
Ever seen what green tea ice cream looks like when it melts? Or what very fine wet beach sand looks like when you dribble it over the peaks of your sand castle towers for effect? This was like that. And it was very clearly colour-of-wasabi. Apparently wasabi sauce is what happens when the chef decides to use about twice as much water as normal to reconstitute the wasabi powder - at least, that's my best guess, based on my admittedly limited experience with production kitchen sized containers of wasabi. My plate contained eight very small deep fried rolls liberally covered with this, a scoop of more solid wasabi, and the mandatory pickled ginger. Mom looked at my plate and then at hers, which was all but flinging lobster into her lap and screaming that it couldn't carry such a burden, and asked if it'd be enough.
Allow me to inform you that a sufficient quantity of nuclear horseradish can convince your stomach that it is, in fact, really quite full. Especially when backwash over the unguarded end of the soft palate means that you wind up with nasal passages and sinuses full of wasabi fumes.
The rolls were good. The wasabi was decent. I wouldn't order that again, because I prefer my chemical burns in food to come from capsaicin, but it was a good meal. I did discover that drinking cold water immediately after consuming wasabi is a very bad idea, as it activates any horseradish particles that may not have been brought to life when the chef made up the sauce to begin with, but that only happened twice - once at the start of the meal, and once when I forgot. I was quite happy with my food and got a little green tea ice cream for dessert, which looked like it had been issued by the US Army. (It was olive drab, I swear.) All in all it went very well and I think my mother would be more than happy to eat there again, or to order from there. I'm not all that fond of Japanese food compared to Chinese, myself, but I'd be willing to eat there again.
Mom was a little put off by the flavour of the miso soup, but when I tried it there was nothing wrong. She just didn't like the taste all that much. The salad that came ahead of her meal was a startle for her as well, as the dressing was mostly ginger and Mom really doesn't like ginger. Fortunately her appetizer, age dashi tofu, was exactly how she remembered it from a recent visit to Aunt K.'s - the family had ordered Japanese there, and Mom had tried some of it and rather liked the fried tofu. Myself, I got beef sashimi, which is only a little thicker than beef carpaccio and seared on the outside but raw within. Rather liked it.
Then came the main dishes. Mom got lobster teriyaki, which meant a plate of big ol' lobster tail action and ornately carved lemons and white sesame seed garnish. Me? I'd ordered the wasabi roll. The description had said deep fried rolls of white fish, crab, and salmon (not sure on that last - it might've just been white fish and crab) in the chef's wasabi sauce. I assumed, given that this was on a menu with things like Pikachu Roll and Godzilla Roll, that I was ordering from the Give The Gaijin Stuff That Won't Scare Them Away section of the menu. Wasabi sauce, I reasoned, was probably ponzu-based but heavily laced with wasabi.
Wrong.
Ever seen what green tea ice cream looks like when it melts? Or what very fine wet beach sand looks like when you dribble it over the peaks of your sand castle towers for effect? This was like that. And it was very clearly colour-of-wasabi. Apparently wasabi sauce is what happens when the chef decides to use about twice as much water as normal to reconstitute the wasabi powder - at least, that's my best guess, based on my admittedly limited experience with production kitchen sized containers of wasabi. My plate contained eight very small deep fried rolls liberally covered with this, a scoop of more solid wasabi, and the mandatory pickled ginger. Mom looked at my plate and then at hers, which was all but flinging lobster into her lap and screaming that it couldn't carry such a burden, and asked if it'd be enough.
Allow me to inform you that a sufficient quantity of nuclear horseradish can convince your stomach that it is, in fact, really quite full. Especially when backwash over the unguarded end of the soft palate means that you wind up with nasal passages and sinuses full of wasabi fumes.
The rolls were good. The wasabi was decent. I wouldn't order that again, because I prefer my chemical burns in food to come from capsaicin, but it was a good meal. I did discover that drinking cold water immediately after consuming wasabi is a very bad idea, as it activates any horseradish particles that may not have been brought to life when the chef made up the sauce to begin with, but that only happened twice - once at the start of the meal, and once when I forgot. I was quite happy with my food and got a little green tea ice cream for dessert, which looked like it had been issued by the US Army. (It was olive drab, I swear.) All in all it went very well and I think my mother would be more than happy to eat there again, or to order from there. I'm not all that fond of Japanese food compared to Chinese, myself, but I'd be willing to eat there again.
