About Andrew Phelps
Andrew Phelps is a WBUR reporter and the host of Hubbub, a new blog about Boston.
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My first time
Last night I did the unthinkable. I tried sushi for the first time.
Three months ago, after writing about my decision to push my own boundaries, I received a number of invitations to experience “my first time” with raw fish.
The lucky winner was Lisa Talavera, who took me to Wasabi Japanese Cuisine in Vista. She brought her sister, Stefanie, also apparently a sushi veteran.
Lisa Talavera
Now let me interject. I’m a guy who seeks diversity, who embraces different, who loves adventure — including in food. But to be perfectly honest, except for Filipino food, most Asian cuisine has been off my palette.
Even sitting in Wasabi was foreign, although charming and cozy. (Ironically, I’m fascinated by Japanese culture, and I hope to visit the country soon.) Lisa pretty much commandeered the ordering process. With a golf pencil, she checked off our dinner choices: California rolls, Philadelphia rolls, and some concoction called dynamite.
Our server brought out a plate with a mound of folded, thin, salmon-colored something-or-other. Next to it, a bright green ball of paste about the size of a ping-pong ball. I don’t remember what the red stuff was (maybe salmon?), and the green stuff looked like avocado. (But it wasn’t avocado.)
The food didn’t take long to arrive. There were several rolls to a plate. They looked like stray tires from a truck that had driven through rice fields.
Lisa then poured a generous serving of soy sauce onto each of our saucers. I noticed another sauce, “Soy Lite”, but didn’t bother with it.
Before attacking my food, I realized I had something else to figure out: chop sticks. This was an ordeal. Chop sticks require very precise grip. “Just use the top one like a pencil!” the girls kept saying, as if it were so easy. It took awhile, but I caught on — not without destroying one of my California rolls, though.
Battered and beaten, my first (uneaten) California roll
Soon it was time to end all lollygagging and eat the thing. It had to be taken in all at once, a doubly frightening prospect. I made the decision to have my first roll with soy sauce, which I hadn’t know the taste of yet.
Dip it in the sauce. Don’t drop it. Tamp it on the plate. Don’t drop it. Put it in my mouth.
I can’t explain what happened next, and I can’t forget it, either. It was a party in my mouth, and I was not invited.
A fusion of far Eastern tastes came undone, and I could taste the cycle. First the cold rice. Then, the chewy, black seaweed. In between these phases were tastes I could not discern.
It took a really long time. I chewed slowly, letting the stuff sort of dissolve and my throat just swallow what it could. It must have taken five minutes to finish. My face was distorted. My hands were fists. I ground the chop sticks into the wall. I had to finish the son of the bitch, even though I felt like throwing it up. Stefanie said it reminded her of an episode of Fear Factor.
My first time was not gentle. (Photo by Lisa Talavera)
I finally finished, licking the inside of my mouth to get every bit of rice down my throat. “Well,” I practically gasped. “That was great!”
I sucked down 5 ounces of Coke, that wonderful, Western, brown comfort that I know so well.
It was time to go easy. Lisa introduced me to the dynamite, which wasn’t as scary as it sounded. It was cooked, too — some combination of crab and fish. I liked it.
She also explained that my California roll didn’t even have any raw fish in it. “Oh.”
I had another, subjecting myself to the same experience again. It was slightly easier, of course, but I still had to remind myself why I was doing this. It was just as much mental as physical.
When it was done, and my buds could rest, it was time to try a Philadelphia roll. Raw salmon with cream cheese. (Do they call it “Philadelphia” because of the brand name of cream cheese?) I gave it another go, but this time without soy sauce. At once I realized two things: The soy sauce was a big reason I wanted to gag, but the roll needs soy sauce or it is dry and hard to swallow. (Next time, I will use the “Lite” sauce, which has less sodium.)
It was less difficult now. I actually could taste some of the cream cheese and salmon somewhere in there, which was tasty. But I still had to work to get that thing down.
After three or maybe four rolls, I was done. As part of the experience, though, I had to try a speck of wasabi, that green paste in a ball.
I put a trace amount on the end of my stick and took a lick. Whoa! It was an explosion. It was horseradish tenfold. It might be years before I find myself actually craving that stuff.
For dessert, Lisa ordered green tea ice cream. In the low light of the restaurant, it looked like merely a bowl of big scoops of wasabi. I was wary, but I tried it. Sure enough, it tasted like green tea… but ice cream. Not too bad.
Stefanie Talavera enjoying green tea ice cream
At the end of the night I was beaten up but still standing. My body didn’t quite know how to react, and for several hours my stomach was in knots. But it was a positive experience overall.
Next time, Lisa said, we will get into some real sushi — some raw fish — no little rice tires. It’s definitely a process, though, and not something that can be mastered in one night.
As part of this journey to try new things, sushi has opened up a lot. Not to mention my sinuses.
19 Comments on ‘My first time’
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Wasabi has to be the devil’s concoction. It’s just way too hot for me. Just the absolute tiniest amount is all I ever need. It’s a great decongestant though.
Your pink stuff was probably ginger.
If you visit some other sushi places, one thing you will notice is that there is almost always a variation in taste among them. Sometimes, it’s barely noticeable and other times you would need a defective tongue not to notice the difference.
This talk of sushi brings to mind my freshman year of high school. We had to do country reports for our Geography class and we all brought in foods representing our countries and of course somebody had to bring sushi. As we were walking through the line a couple of the asses behind me (and they truly were, but that’s a story for another time) dared me to try some of the wasabi and ginger. I took a little more wasabi than normal for me, which was more than enough to suit them, and some of the ginger, and shoved it in my mouth. As they gasped in amazement and anticipation of the panic they expected to follow, I proceeded through the line as though nothing had happened.
Glad to hear you’re trying new things.
Ginger! That’s right.
You crack me up, man! Thanks for the great posts.
Other good local sushi:
- Shushi Taisho, above the Coyote Cafe in Carlsbad
- That new place by the Krikorian Theater ain’t bad either
- All you can eat on the corner of Rancho Santa Fe Rd and San Marcos Blvd.
Those two girls are hot
OK, wasabi rocks. Sushi rocks. The Talavera girls rock. What is your problem, man?
Honestly, I think this is just a poor excuse to show off the girls and a plate of messed up fishy stuff.
And by the way, real men eat sashimi.
To Hell with the Wasabi, Lisa Talavera is smoking hot herself. Ouch.
Philadelphia roll. Raw salmon with cream cheese.
Its not raw salmon, its smoked or otherwise cured.
johnx,
Thanks. Shows how oblivious I am to the world of sushi.
Criminy. Forget the sushi and go with a sandwich–a Talavera sandwich, that is…
stefanie’s cute..
i’m not really into sushi, though i’d try it if she was with me :-)
Well-written story, but I believe you were making a big deal out of nothing, especially since you didn’t even eat any raw fish!
I wouldn’t mind eating a live elephant, let alone raw fish, if those girls were with me.
can i have another picture from Stefanie Talavera??
pleace
i’m an german girl…
pleace…
i love sushi to bits i can6t say how its nasty! if u tried sum of my mums sushi it wuld turn u into 1 kinky japanese guy ok so please dont dis my natuive countries food. love the jap
I’ll say whatever I want about sushi and it’s not going to be in any way racist/anti-schematic/prejudice… Christ, if an asian person says “Man, I hate McDonals” I’m not going to reply “STOP DISSING MY COUNTRIES FOOD OMG I’M A MORON!!” … You’re an idiot, and you’re probably like 12. So think very hard, is it a big deal that you’re japanese? No. Stop making it one.
As for all you people saying he’s over-reacting, yeah. He is. What did you want him to write? “Yeah. It was good, I pretty much liked all of it.” That’s not a very exciting story.
If I tried sushi, I probably wouldn’t like it, since it’s(for the most part) an aqquired taste. But yeah, he probably didn’t like it and overreacted while writing it just to make it more exciting.
Anyways, good show man.
Chris
alrite mate lol jus had a look as u r a Phelps…i expect ur American bt im British but i still found ur blog awsum lol inabit Phelpsie
Best sushi place that I have ever found was on the second floor of the domestic terminal in Bangkok.
Great story though.
i never ate suhi, too. but with 2 beutiful like this, i would eat nearly everything!
salute!
Those two girls are hot