Sunday, September 10, 2006

Asian Invasion

You won´t even believe what I did today. Honestly, I still can´t believe it myself. Here´s a hint:

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Yes, people, I ate Japanese food.

Okay, here´s a moment of brutal honesty, because it´s my blog and I should be honest. I don´t like Japanese food. The Japanese food I like is mostly actually Chinese (yakisoba, gyosa). I do like tempura, and I think that´s actually Japanese. But generally, no I don´t like Japanese food. I don´t like seaweed, I don´t like fishy fish, I don´t like soy sauce, I don´t like misso. And let´s not even talk about natto. Just being honest, people. :)

But today after church I was invited to go to a pretty authentic Japanese restaurant in the next city called "Yoshi´s Japanese Restaurant." That´s really what it was called. Japanese restaurant in Brazil with an English name. Go fig. Anyhoo, I have a short antedote and I´ll post some pictures.

First, we were eating a buffet style meal where they bring things by your table for you to eat (rodizio). The first big plate that was brought were these sushi rolls like I´d never seen before. They were about the size and shape of a conical ice cream cone (made of seaweed of course), filled with rice and then with a lot of this red stuff on top. Now, I could have SWORN that the waitress said it was tomato. Yes, that´s weird, but it´s Brazilian sushi after all. So I take one and take a big bite. Then a few minutes later as I´m looking at the remainder of this HUMONGOUS sushi roll, I realize it is not tomato, but in fact raw salmon. As if that´s not bad enough, about halfway through our meal my friend leans over to me and says, "You´re going to finish that, right? You know you have to pay extra for what you don´t eat." I wish I could have seen my face at that moment, because I had a pile of raw salmon on my place about the size of a very generous scoop of ice cream. I tried, I tried valiantly, but I couldn´t do it. Some things are worth paying extra for. Mental peace is one. But really, I´m still not convinced that my friend wasn´t kidding. He swears he wasn´t, but it would have been a pretty funny joke, huh? :)

Here are some pictures!


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Uma barca de sushi! A boat of sushi!


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Phyllis and Ako, our wonderful hostess. Yes, her family is Japanese. :)


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Ivan (happy with sushi) and Ann (happy without sushi)

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Jorge and Antenor

Really, the food was actually really good and the company was wonderful. It brought back lots of memories! :) Itadakimasu! Gotsosamadeshita!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, I needed a laugh and this takes the cake. It's all true a lot of food in Japan is from China and Korea, as well as the USA. Even Rice is not originally Japanese. (By the way Yakiniku might be from Korea.)

Peace

Misty said...

I love sushi and it makes m sad that your super-sized salmon roll went unappreciated, but, more to the point...you have to pay if you DON'T clean your plate?!? Lame!!

Anonymous said...

Oishi sou! Remember your first day in Japan when we took you out to have sushi?! I was so sure you'd like it! I mean how can anyone not love sushi!! Hahaha....Good on you for giving it a try though :)