Open All Night

I have many food weaknesses, but one of them is Japanese food. The joke is that because my mom craved it when she was pregnant, I have thus taken on the same craving. That is all fine and good, but generally it is expensive. Since I turn into the American version of Kobyashi, and eat way more than I normally do, it really does turn into a pricey proposition. Because of that fact, I don’t like to eat it on the company dime. In fact, of the probably 40 restaurants I have tried in the Milwaukee area, only one has been of that fare, and then only because a customer wanted to go. Imagine my delight tonight when I came across a local restaurant advertising 50% off on Tuesdays on their website!

I jumped into the Fusion, caught up with an old chum, and proceeded to the restaurant. I normally would do hibachi, but I really was craving sushi (plus, Derek just told me you look idiotic having hibachi by yourself. We’ll see if I remember that the next Tuesday I am dining solo out here). I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get enough sushi to fill me, get a soup and salad, and still stay under the mythical $15 barrier that I normally set for myself. It was during this 10 minutes that I discovered it is really “something more than 30 and less than 50% off.” It is still a great deal, but not the 50% on the menu. And to be fair, the discount menu says exactly that, namely that it is for the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday discount.

I settled for 2 pieces of regular sushi, a salmon roll, and a “fancy” roll. I normally get a Rainbow roll, which is a California roll topped with other types of fish. Even at a “discount” it still ate up too much of my budget. Since I wanted to try a new one anyway, I went with the “Fashion” roll. It had lots of good stuff in it, including tuna, salmon, avocado, plus tempura flakes. When it arrived it wasn’t the “normal” roll shape of a rounded rectangle. It looked like a church window, with the bottom being flat and the top being semicircular. It was an imposing size, even at just 5 pieces. I mowed through the salmon roll, and the two a la carte orphans (be gone crab stick and octopus!), and only devoured one of the big roll pieces. I got down to two, and noticed that one was way bigger than the rest, predominantly because of the rice. I decided to eat it first, because the other piece was full of more of the fashion roll goodness. I eyed it
anxiously, believing that I could eat it in one swoop, as I had the other pieces. This seemed ok, despite the fact that I barely had any room in my mouth normally. In mid roll lift I decided that I did not want to look like I was auditioning for an Asian adult film, and began to close my mouth slightly to instead take the piece in 2 bites. It was then that I committed a “fashion roll faux pas.” I closed my mouth too far and rammed the roll train right into my upper set of choppers. Rice, seaweed, fish, and wayward soy sauce crashed on to the plate, followed closely by my dignity. I quickly corraled them and polished off the other piece. It was devoured smoothly and I was sated.

However, I still had enough room for a post dinner snack. I stopped at McD’s for a sundae. I asked for the “vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce”, as I did not want the caramel kind which I seemed to remember them having. The disembodied voice from the ordering squawk box replied “we don’t have that kind, we only have fudge.” Seriously??? What do you think fudge is? I only wish they had a camera on the car so she could have watched me stare in disbelief at the box. It was only rivaled by my disbelief as I watched my sundae being waved at me from the 2nd window while I waited for my change from the order taker than did not understand the hierarchy within the dessert community. Thanks for melting half my ice cream from your hand heat.

Pleasantly plump for you,
-Michael