August 2005
Monthly Archive
Sun 14 Aug 2005
Sat 13 Aug 2005
Can something be very mediocre? Or perhaps intensely mediocre is more appropriate. In either case, we ate some mediocre sushi last night.
We’re still finding our sushi legs here in Atlanta. Sure, there’s no shortage of expensive sushi joints, catering to the hip and prosperous of the city. But in a metropolis where you can find several dozen strip malls for more or less every ethnic group on the planet, clearly there’s some excellent cheap sushi out there. But where?
Our instincts and, yes, a recommendation, pointed us to Buford Highway. This is where many of the aforementioned strip malls are located. Feel the need to visit an all Hmong mall? It’s there. Want to get your nails done by Sufis and then go for some Kayin food, before visiting an all Bhutanese car wash? You’re in the right part of town.
We’d been told that a place called Toyotaya had an all you can eat sushi buffet. Now before you dismiss this as a cheap gimick, or a short-cut to food poisoning, consider the implications if the sushi was in fact good: all you can eat sushi. Not, like in England, where the term is “eat all you like.” With limitless good sushi, I wouldn’t simply eat all that I was, at that moment, predisposed to eating. No. I would eat all I could physically eat. Plus a little more.
In fact, that’s exactly what we did, and for only around $15. And the sushi wasn’t bad. It was just, well, intensely mediocre. It was clear that none of the raw fish would kill us, or even result in our playing host to intestinal parasites of any great magnitude. But it was all just slightly, well, not so good. The tuna was a little too mushy, and a little too red (presumably dyed). The salmon was not so good on one run, pretty much okay on another. The coconut macaroons, which we crammed down after eating too much maki and nigiri, were the best part of the meal. And that’s just not right.
As for ambience, well, it was… empty. Not entirely empty, but a little too devoid of patrons. We were there fairly early, but still, $15 all you can eat sushi should be packed at any time after 6pm. Especially on a Friday. And it wasn’t the strip mall location that put the decor to fault - the key to dining in America is the strip malls, some of which contain fantastic restaurants. It was more that the whole place had gone ever so slightly to seed. Which really isn’t good if you’re after sushi. About the only thing that could be said for the place was the bizarre instrumental version of John Lennon’s “Oh Yoko” that seemed to have been recorded on some sort of miniature harpsichord.
The lesson of the evening was two-fold: Firstly, sushi really is all about quality, not quantity. It’s a harsh lesson to have to learn, but I guess in the end it was probably worth $15 to be taught this. Secondly, that we need to keep looking. Clearly somewhere out there in Atlanta there’s a cheap sushi mecca. It may not be all you can eat. It may not even be eat all you like. But it’s out there. And we will find it.
Posted by B. W. Ventril in Reviews
One Response to “Don’t Eat Mediocre Sushi”
- holagatita says:
I have to agree with your assessment of the American strip mall=good restaurant equation, espcially, it seems, with respect to Asian foods. I am still pining for Sitar India Palace in Durham’s Southpoint hovel. Eastern Lights (in the Kmart strip mall behind it) also kicked ass.August 14th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Thu 11 Aug 2005
Okay, now this film looks really interesting. Did anyone see its TV version in Britain? The filmmaker, Adam Curtis, analyzes the deep causes of our current post-September 11 awfulness by beginning in 1949, a year when radical Islamist Sayyid Qutb and neo-con guru Leo Strauss were developing their critiques of western liberalism. I don’t know whether or not, in execution, this just makes for heavy handed irony (look, they’re both criticizing western liberalism but will end up fighting each other!) or for something more profound. I’ll be interested to see what he does with this starting point. Both the Guardian and Curtis, I think, make a bit too much of the fact that the film hasn’t been shown on US television yet. On the one hand, I agree with all of their points about the lack of risk-taking on US television networks. Curtis identifies this with a post-9/11 media pathology:
“What happens on US TV now is that you have a theatre of confrontation so that people avoid having to seriously analyse what the modern world is like - perhaps because of the emotional shock of September 11,” says Curtis. “People take so-called left or right positions and shout at each other. It’s almost like the court of Louis XIV - people taking elaborate positions and not thinking very much.”
But wasn’t it already like this before Sept. 11? As usual, lefty Brits are underestimating the power of pervasive crapitude on American television. That said, point taken.
Wed 10 Aug 2005
Mon 8 Aug 2005
I must say that I’m with the Liberals in arguing that the vote they just lost wasn’t a vote of no confidence, and that they therefore shouldn’t resign. I mean, the motion merely asked “the public accounts committee ‘to recommend that the government resign.’” Fine, now recommend it, assholes. I say this not so much as a fan of the Canadian Liberal Party, but as a fan of pedantry.
Hopefully by the time the government does fall my new Canadian passport will finally be here, as I’ll need it to register to vote. Mmmm… voting. It’s been a while. In the mean time, for those residents of a parliamentary democracy hell-bent on bringing down a minority government, here’s a handy how-to guide courtesy of the CBC.
Sun 7 Aug 2005
Sun 7 Aug 2005
We’re back from a flying visit here:
No, that’s not an attempt by Christo to wrap the Parliamentary library Reichstag-style, they’re just still cleaning it.
Random observations on Canada, this time round:
- What’s with ‘Sex TV’? My folks now have the swanky cable, which includes this channel, the name of which at least hints at the promise of sex. However, in practice it barely delivers sub-sub-erotica. Seriously. In the day it plays ‘The Scarecrow and Mrs. King’. Well, okay, not that, but programming with exactly that level of raunch. Now I’m not saying there should be a channel of full-fledged hardcore pornography 24-hours a day (or am I?), but this is some serious false advertising.
- It was great fun to hear everyone bitching about the heat. Oh no, it’s going to be 27 celsius! A scorcher!
- Alexander Keith’s is not an India Pale Ale. More false advertising. And yes, I knew it wasn’t a great beer, but really, should they call it an IPA? See ‘Sex TV’.
- Ben Mulroney looks just like his dad (Americans: that’s the awful former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney). I never actually saw ‘Canadian Idol’, but it was bad enough seeing a picture of Mulroney Jr. in the paper. Deeply disturbing.
- I don’t care what people say. The Globe and Mail is a pretty good paper. See, that’s what happens when you live in the US for a while. But the Ottawa Citizen still sucks donkey balls.
- They’ve done up the Chateau Lafayette (aka ‘The Laf’), the oldest pub in Ottawa. But not too much. Still, it was a shock to see it semi-clean. And didn’t it used to have a urinal trough? I guess that could just be my memory romanticizing the pre-renovation Laf, but I’m pretty sure it did.
- This is for Bear Left, and all gay men who like other hairy gay men:
We didn’t let the bear take us there (just Delta), but I’m starting to wish we had.
A random observation upon returning to the US:
- There really are a lot of people in desert fatigues in the airport.
Posted by B. W. Ventril in Miscellanea
6 Responses to “Back from the North”
- Bear Left says:
* There were a lot of people in desert fatigues in the airport when I left as well… of course, Mexico had its own army, not mobilized for the Middle East, but to keep order in the coming age of Blade Runner… (plus of course in Chiapas here & now)* I’ve already blogged your photo, of course- thanks!
* did you notice Ben Mulroney’s educational pedigree? Am trying to remember who I know who mentioned having him in their classes.
- Sha Sha says:
While in Ottawa, did you drink any of the following beers: Upper Canada Dark, Rickard’s Red, Grasshopper, or Kokanee? Did you visit any of the following bars: Fox & Feather, Royal Oak, Urban Bistro, Lt. Pooley’s?
I recently came across a journal entry from my time in Ottawa detailing a pretty fabulous pub crawl. - lady macventril says:
I don’t think we had any of those beers, or even drank in any of those pubs, though I remember seeing both the Fox & Feather and the Royal Oak (aka the Welfare Oak, according to BW), on our journey.
We did drink: Keith’s IPA, Boreal Blonde, and Creemore - as well as a mountain of Sleeman’s Clear (not recommended), the light beer of choice in the elder Ventrils’ household. As for the pubs, we hit: Earl of Sussex, the Manx, and Chateau Lafayette, aka the Laff, serving the drunken and toothless since 1849. - B. W. Ventril says:
Upper Canada Dark was always one of my favourite Canadian beers, but I didn’t see it anywhere this time round. Do any Canadians know whether or not the brewery has gone under, or was I just not looking hard enough? - Great Blue says:
Sleeman bought them. They still exist, but without that hardcore micro cred they had. - B. W. Ventril says:
That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. My parents drink Sleeman’s Clear right now, a real step down from Labbat Wildcat, their previous beer.
Sat 6 Aug 2005
Fri 5 Aug 2005
Thu 4 Aug 2005