Fresh Sushi!

So when I lived in Florida there was this huuuge billboard with some Asian guy cooking sushi and all it said in big letters was "FRESH SUSHI" and the name of the place in small letters somewhere. But every time I eat sushi, I think of that sign... and thus we have our title.

I did indeed have fresh sushi tonight! It was SO good! For those of you who don't know, about two years ago I developed a severe liking to sushi. I had even had a "sushi friend" in Provo whom I would go eat sushi with whenever the other was craving sushi. So, Mike found out that I like sushi, but that I'd never had "real" sushi (ie fresh). He is apparently a sushi connoisseur and has a "sushi budget" and says that whenever he's home he goes at least once a week. He was even buddies with the main chef at this place! Of course, I realized a bit too late that I should have been taking pictures of all the sushi we were eating... blast. I didn't think of it until our very last rolls, and they looked like the regular rolls. The others SO did not look like the 'regular' rolls, but they were actually quite good.

I'm used to the sushi that's in a roll, wrapped in seaweed and rice, but this sushi was like a slab of fish on top of rice, occasionally with some sort of sauce on top (it looks more like the ones in that first picture). We had 5 or 6 different kinds of this sushi (one piece each). We had tuna, yellow-tailed tuna (never heard of it), albacore, salmon, eel, and possibly one other. I can't remember - we had a lot. And then the chef said "ooh I know what she'd like" and made me this absolutely amazing plate of sushi that he called "Volcano" and it is apparently his own version of volcano, but it was so good! It was on a round plate with half slices of lemon all around the plate, and each cut of the roll face up, with some sort of tuna-ish stuff in an almost mush form on top of each piece, topped with various sauces drizzled all across the plate, and yeah... amazing. I wish I had taken a picture of that one because it looked just about as good as it tasted!

Then Mike has this weird sushi wrap thing. I can't remember what it was called, but it basically looked like an ice cream cone with sushi inside... and the cone was made of seaweed. It was cool looking and I *did* remember to take a picture of that one. After that we had one more, and it was more of a traditional looking roll (the only other one I got a picture of) and it was a dessert roll. I didn't know you could have a "dessert" roll with sushi, but now I know! It was like a sweet roll, but still with the salty stuff. I don't know how to explain it, but it was SO good! Had I not been so full from all the other sushi we had had, I would have eaten more of the dessert roll! Oh my goodness it was all so good though.

Mike and the chef were both surprised that I really did try everything that they put in front of me. But hey, I'll try just about anything once. I don't guarantee I'll like it, but I'll at least try it. (Oh, we had kimchi too, and I didn't like that.) I don't think I have ever been that full from sushi, but it was a good kind of full. I guess I am slowly working my way into liking all types of seafood, because none of it tasted gross to me today!