the other night, i was having a hankering for sushi, but, of course, it was monday, and kotobuki was closed. (see? mondays = most businesses closed). so what was my fix? takeout sushi from wasabi. [flash-attack warning: it's really annoying when you just want to see the menu, find out the location, etc., but you have to wait for the pages to load. imo, it's a really obnoxious site.]

since it's by cavin's work, he picked some up from the takeaway menu on his way home. he picked up a medium mix ($12.00), and a salmon, avocado & capelin caviar roll ($3.00 for 4 pieces). the medium mix included (2 pieces each): (cooked) shrimp nigiri, salmon nigiri, tuna nigiri, small cucumber roll, small tuna roll, and an inside-out salmon, avocado & sesame seed roll. and, of course, they supply you with the wasabi, soy sauce, and pickled ginger.

it was just ok. the salmon, avocado, sesame seed roll was the best. to be honest though, i think it was the best because i have an affinity towards rice and sesame seeds, and i think the sesame seeds contributed most to the flavor. the biggest problem i had was with the nigiri. there was simply too much rice, and the rice was rather hard and not moist at all. it really didn't even taste like sushi rice, but more like undercooked jasmine white rice. the salmon and the tuna tasted as fresh as takeaway sushi could have been - i had a feeling that the sushi was prepared a few hours before cavin picked it up and ended up on our table. i think "legitimate" takeaway sushi places should write the time the sushi is made and packaged on the container (unless it's made to order like at kotobuki), so the diner has an idea what she is getting into. but alas, no such timestamp at wasabi.

we had only gone to wasabi once before, when it first opened earlier in the year. here was my review:

wasabi

i dunno. i wanted to like it. and, i did like the salmon, but unfortunately, that is the only standout thing i can really remember, taste related. i do remember being trumped by the family of 5 the entire time. it was like being at the airport baggage terminal, but standing at the end where the bags return to the land of arms and gloves behind the black flaps. well, sort of, not really, but similar to that. they call it kaiten-style, where the sushi comes out on a conveyor belt. the plates are each a different color to signify the price. i think we saw at least a few dishes that never quite made it around to over where we sat because the family snatched them up. if we hadn't sat so close (we sat in close proximity to them, but on the other side of the loop, where the plates are almost done their catwalk and go back to the dressing room), we wouldn't have seen what we were missing (some kind of hand roll i think, a dumpling look-a-like, etc). but yeah, the salmon was pretty fatty, and melted in my mouth when i ate it. i tasted this chicken dish - it was essentially a japanafied version of a goujon with hot mustard sauce as the condiment. also, and now that i think about it, the yellowtail sashimi with a cilantro-based puree was pretty tasty (ok, so i take back what i said about the salmon being the only standout thing).

i was on the website reading up on the man behind wasabi, and i read that he wasn't japanese, but had a latin background. i thought to myself, hmmm, how is this guy going to pull this off? here's how. he has robots making his sushi! that's right. ROBOTS. i read that they were hiring, and in the description for one of the positions, it talks about how they need people to CUT the sushi. not PREPARE it. it said something like, "we have robots make the sushi, so we need people who can cut up the rolls." wha? why not just have robots cut the rolls too? in fact, why not just get rid of all humans and just make it the first restaurant ran by robots?

oh, and while on the subject of websites. i'm sorry, but the wasabi website is just plain awful. the flash is so slow, and it takes forever for the page to load. not to mention there is no menu. they claim to have a menu, but all it is a generic decription of the types of foods you might find.

anyway, back to the food. there was another chicken dish that i can't quite remember the taste. it wasn't that memorable of a dish to me, except for the fact that it was served on rice and was spicy. oh, and there was a crabstick avocado (i guess california roll?) that was ok. and also a herbed tuna roll. it had some dark leafy green in it, maybe spinach, or maybe it was watercress. i don't know. it was an interesting idea, but i didn't quite get it. but maybe that's just me.

we let a lot of dishes go by - there was a salad, some flounder that had undergone the same treatment as the yellowtail i described above. an asparagus roll. tuna sashimi. miso soup. we tallied up the plates (all from $2-$6 a plate, but most closer to $4 and above) and our bill came to 50 bucks. eh. a little too pricey for me, especially for the selection. i guess i don't mind trying it out the first time. but this will probably be the final time i go back unless, 1) i sit by the beginning of the conveyor belt; 2) have a better selection of food; 3) they post a sample menu on the website and cut out the outrageous flash; 4) fire all the humans and bring in the robots.

so why the hell did we go back to wasabi? i'm not sure. i think my stomach won out in the battle vs. my brain, because there are still humans working there, and the website is still really awful. but after we finished, we were a tad bit hungry still, so we decided to try the hot sausage (we got two types: hot and sage) that we got from the butcher in our pork order.

i was a little bit worried, because looking at the package (and the crappy picture i took this morning) it seems that the pork wasn't thoroughly mixed enough with the seasonings. i didn't want to be eating ground pork with pockets of flavors - i wanted hot flavors throughout! i was so tempted to season the sausage, but cavin convinced me not to. how were we to know what the sausage tasted like as-is? of course, he was right. so against my desire to re-season the sausage, i pan fried it in a non-stick pan, no oil.

it was good! surprisingly, it was seasoned throughout, and it left a bit of heat on my tongue afterwards! even though it was hot flavored, it still had a slight sweetness to it. and i bet if i had seasoned it more, it probably would have been too salty (good work cavin).

we didn't cook all of it (the picture shows the remainder), and either tonight or tomorrow we'll prolly try to make this stuffed mushrooms recipe that i saw on epicurious. normally we just saute whatever veggies we have in the house, add some breadcrumbs and cooked sausage and stuff the mushrooms and bake them. but while bored one day i came across this recipe and since over 300 people tried it "92% would make it again" i figured i'd also give it a try. it's got a lot of cream cheese, which i will probably cut down because cavin doesn't like cheese too much. i'll make sure to post about it in case you want to try it at home (that is, if it's as good as most people are reporting).

Labels: pork, sushi