The Tuna Thief
Last Friday I mistakenly ate meat (it is Lent, remember). It was a completely honest mistake in the sense that I "forgot" it was Friday. Friday happened to be a holiday for me (Cesar Chavez Day), so I didn't have to go into work. It is not customary for me to have Fridays off, so when I ordered Orange Chicken and Mandarin Chicken at Stonestown Shopping Center I really thought nothing of it. It wasn't until later that night when Mike reminded me that it was Friday that I realized my mistake.
Anyhow, the result of that mistake is that I elected to abstain from meat today. And what better meal (well, second, of course, to my mom's shrimp scampi) to have on a meatless day than sushi? I consider myself very fortunate to have discovered a sushi establishment just about 7 blocks from my house that serves excellent sushi at extremely low prices. Previously, my favorite sushi place was Isobune in Japan Town Center, but now that I have discovere Sakanabune, I don't know that my sushi life will ever be the same again. At Sakanabune, I can get two pieces of Unagi (that's eel, for the sushi illiterate) for a mere $1.50! Compare that to $3.15 at Isobune and the math is easy - Sakanabune wins out. Of course, many people might think that at $1.50 a plate the quality would be poor. Not so! In fact, the quality of the sushi is very good. Perhaps it isn't as good as, say, Nobu, but remember that you will also pay more than $7 per serving there, and even then you're really just paying to dine in one of New York's hippest joints. Needless to say, the proximity, quality and affordability of the restaurant makes it very attractive.
By now, you might have guessed that I dined at Sakabune tonight. Sakabune, as the name suggests, is a sushi boat restaurant. This means that the sushi plates float around on little boats that go around the sushi bar where the chefs are constantly making new pieces. ("Bune" is Japanese for "boat.") Generally speaking, people will take one or two plates from the boats at a time, consume them, then choose their next plate. Tonight, however, the man seated directly to my left (and his entire family, I might add) had a most uncommon approach to the sushi boat. They were what I like to call "stockpilers." Instead of eating a plate and then choosing another, they pulled plate after plate after plate off of the boats until they literally ran out of room on the counter to put any more down. Every single plate of tuna that came by was grabbed up by them. Since the boats move in a counter-clockwise direction, this proved to be somewhat disconcerting as that meant that no tuna plates ever made it to me. Tuna happens to be one of my favorite, so this was a little frustrating. Fortunately, I arrived about 10-15 minutes before this family did, so I had already had two plates of tuna, but imagine if I had arrived simultaneous to them! They literally pulled off at least 10 plates of tuna.
To his credit, the guy did tell me that he "could be persuaded to let one pass him by." I declined, saying that I had already had my fill of tuna. "Good," he said, "I see this as the hunter-gatherer approach to sushi." What did that mean? Was I supposed to knock him, his wife and two children off their chairs? Or us my chopsticks to stealthily pluck tune out from under their noses? Despite the fact that I personally wasn't interested in any more tuna doesn't change the fact that someone else down the river might have been! It is senseless, as far as I am concerned, to stockpile in that way. The sushi chefs are making new plate of sushi faster than this guy and his family were eating them, so why not just take a new plate each time you want another piece of tuna?
Anyhow, the apartment is a complete mess, so I'm off to do a little spring cleaning. Let's see if we can keep it clean for more than 3 hours this time.