Category: life

This morning a friend, for reasons known only to her, asked that I write something about salmon. Additionally, and probably due to my sushi addiction, Christine told me that I was not allowed to write about raw salmon. This makes my task much more difficult.

What can I say about non-raw salmon that hasn’t already been said? They’re a fine and noble fish, and particularly slippery if you try to bring one into your boat with your bare hands. I think very highly of those creatures, even if I can’t be certain what they think of me.

What would they think of me? What would they think if they knew that, somewhere out there, in the fishless wastes known as “dry land”, there exists a creature that particularly enjoys soaking their flesh in sauce for a couple of hours before cooking them over a barbecue until their flesh is firm and pink. I would guess that they wouldn’t appreciate the whole barbecue experience the way I do. If they had a brain larger than a pea, they might take exception to my eating habits, and possibly take action against me, legal or otherwise.

Thankfully, salmon are unlikely to think about these things because they’re preoccupied with finding that perfect shoal of herring that loiters in the shallows near that rock with all the seagulls on it.

So that’s my blog entry about non-raw salmon. I wonder how Christine is doing with her blog entry. I asked her to write about bubbly soup.

Two days later, Matt, Ken, and I went back to the same restaurant. If the waitress recognized us as the freaks who ate several pounds of raw fish on Tuesday, she didn’t let on. This time, we approached the menu with caution. We enforced a two-item limit on ourselves, and only broke that rule once.

Then tragedy struck. The waitress emerged from the kitchen with the bad news — they were out of quail eggs. Out of quail eggs! My heart fell at the news, and Ken had to make do with only three of the four tobiko-and-quail-egg sushis that he’d ordered.

At that point we took matters into our own hands. What was a sushi night without an adequate supply of quail egg? We paid the bill and set out into the darkened streets of Vancouver to begin our search.

It was close to the corner of Main and Hastings that we were approached by a scruffy type in a trenchcoat. “Weed, hash, quail egg,” he muttered. “Weed, hash, quail egg.” This was the very man we were looking for.

I stepped into a darkened doorway with him, while my brothers lingered inconspicuously under a lamp post. “How much?” I asked.

“Two for twenty.” He peered at the other two through narrowed eyes. “Hey, you’re not cops, are ya?”

“Naw, we’re not cops. We just want some eggs.” I pulled out a twenty to show him I was serious. The sight of money bettered his fears, and in a smooth, practiced gesture, he took the twenty and slipped a couple of fat dime bags into my palm.

“Pleasure doing business,” he grinned and in a second, he was gone. I rejoined my brothers who still loitered inconspicously. They were by far the most inconspicuous persons on that particular street.

“Hey,” Matt said. “People here are really friendly. They keep calling me ‘bud’.”

“I got the stuff. I think we should get out of here,” I suggested.

After walking a couple of blocks, I felt it was safe to examine what I’d paid twenty dollars for. Tucked safely inside the tiny bags were eggs. I peered closer. They were blue. The bastard slipped me robin eggs, not quail eggs!

We thought about going back, but it would be too risky. Defeated, we trudged home as rain started to spatter from black clouds. There would be no more quail egg for us that night.

This week I have the pleasure of a visit from my brother and sushi addict, Ken (a.k.a, “Doctor Destructo”). Sometimes I suspect that he likes to stay at my place only because of its proximity to The Clubhouse. This is the golf-themed restaurant where you can start with a plate of nachos, then move on to sushi and okonomiyaki.

Last night, we walked down the street to The Clubhouse and proceeded to order pretty much everything on the menu. In hindsight that was probably a mistake, but an unavoidable one. Sushi addicts have an inability to order a sensible amount for two people.

To help other sushi addicts, I came up with this list of signs that you may have ordered too much sushi:

• You need to write a list so you don’t forget what to order (Ken had a pen handy, possibly just for this reason).
• When the waitress takes your order, she starts to look a little worried, and comments that it’s a lot of food for two people.
• When the food arrives, you run out of space for the various platters.
• When you finally stuff down the last tobiko-and-quail’s-egg sushi, two more platters of sushi arrive that you completely forgot about.
• An incredulous kitchen staff crowds around the doorway to see if you actually eat that much rice and raw fish.
• You have to think carefully about how your stomach works to figure out if you can finish your beer and the gigantic 10-inch seafood pancake.
• The amount of leftover sushi that you have boxed for take-out is possibly greater than the amount you actually ate at the table.

There you go. If you experience any of those signs while at a Japanese restaurant, you have probably ordered way too much.