Sunday, May 22, 2005

Weekend Recap - Food/etc.

Did I mention we also went furniture shopping for Pooteewheet's soon-to-be practice, went bike browsing, chased down the cat who escaped because of the aforementioned cardboard cutting getting in the way of the garage door sensors, painted the basement wall, went to get Erwood at my aunt-in-law's I'm married party and fetched the leaf blower from the duplex. A full weekend.

Anyway - food. Saturday night was our big going-out without Erwood night and we decided to hit a sushi place. I've had it a few times, but Pooteewheet never has, except the sushi she made in community education that smelled so fishy I could tell she was bringing it in the door upstairs. I canvassed coworkers, and decided on The Hairy Swede's favorite sushi digs, Midori's Floating World Cafe on Lake and 30th. We invited my friend Kyle because I know he likes sushi and also likes anything new and, of course, the more the merrier (for most things). We consumed:
  • Two orders of the Sushi Dinner / Jo (chef's choice - 10 pieces nigiri sushi, 8 pieces California roll, 6 pieces tuna roll)
  • A #9 roll
  • An order of white tuna

We also had all the pre-meal food (soup, salad, bowl o' rice) and would have had fish eggs if they hadn't been out. In the end, the only thing left standing was the two pieces of egg-topped sushi (which neither Kyle nor I like) and like one piece of California roll. We have to give Kyle credit for much of it as I filled up pretty fast because I ate all my rice and Pooteewheet was having issues with the texture of raw fish after a few pieces.

A review? Compared to Sushi Tango, where I went last time, I have to say I preferred Sushi Tango, and I think it's because their sushi is actually less authentic - that is to say, the pieces were smaller (Midori's has HUGE pieces of fish - I actually had to cut a piece of sushi in half to eat it, and that's a no-no), the octopus was "trimmed" (Midori's does it right, you can see the crunchy tentacles - that's part of the texture and experience, but I prefer my octopus from the center), the turnover on the sushi seemed to be quite a bit higher (Sushi Tango is a pretty big place, Midori's is half a dozen tables and six slots at the bar), which always makes me happier because I know the fish has to stay perfectly fresh, so it's probably coming out of a cooler (and I like my sushi a little crisp), and the beer selection is better (Midori's is pretty much Japanese beer only, but I prefer Summit). Midori's was much more interesting because it seemed like the kind of place you might walk into off the street if you were in Japan, and if you felt like it, you could really watch the chef roll your sushi (one guy, there he was, rolling your plate of food). Was it good? Absolutely. But not good enough that I won't try someplace else (Kyle recommend Origami) next time.

We handled the lack of beer choices issue by going to Town Hall Brewery (check out Scott McGerik's blog for a pretty extensive list of articles about the restaurant - note that he talks about Hoban, the Korean restaurant, as well - which is by my house, close enough to bike there and which Pooteewheet and I discussed yesterday as some place we should go - weird) afterwards and watching Iron Chef while drinking a few of the house beers. At one point, a guy walked up and noted that we were watching Iron Chef and must be desparate for entertainment. He then tried to sell us a (presumably bootleg) copy of Star Wars III (honest) before being run out by the wait staff. When we left, we saw him trying to sneak into the next bar down the road.

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