Hello! And welcome to the 13th post of Pizza Rat's Paradise.
One of my absolute favorite things to do while eating at sushi restaurants is to eat and try new types of sushi -- I've dined with so many friends who just stick to the old boring "chirashi" dish -- I like to go deeper into places and styles of sushi that I've never been before --
For that year for my birthday dinner, I decided to try something new -- oshizushi.
I really loved the unique rectangular shape -- I had been so used to eating sushi in round form, it was truly an interesting experience to have it pressed!
I also love saba mackerel -- if I do say, when I was living in LA I used to go to Ralph's (if I recall correctly, or maybe it was from Sawtelle) and buy saba from their freezers -- then defrost it and serve it with some piping hot fresh rice. What I love about saba is that the vinegar has cooked the fish already, so it's technically not raw and one doesn't have to worry about the safety of eating raw fish bought from stores, whether it's sashimi-grade or not, or worry about freezing protocols to kill off parasites.
I do know that "sushi" is traditionally meant to refer to the vinegared rice, not the raw fish itself. The vinegar was added to help kill/neutralize the parasites in fish. Additionally, I remember watching a video on wasabi, and that the grated root was added to help in a similar way, with antibacterial properties. It has been really cool to see, growing up, how common real authentic wasabi root has become in restaurants and takeout, at least from what I've seen -- it used to be that you had that fake "horseradish/green-dyed" stuff, but it's been a long while since I've seen any of those packets.
I should add, by the way, this was one of the best sushi experiences of my life - highly recommend this restaurant. I hope it hasn't declined in taste, quality, service and ambiance since then. When I left the area in the tail-end of the pandemic, it had adjusted its business by transforming into a catering restaurant from sit-down -- keeping its quality, authenticity and consistency of food in the process -- a wise business move. It's worthy of 5 billion Michelin stars, although I've never dined at a Michelin restaurant myself. It's the idea.
I still remember going there alone, once, and a bartender informed me about the ouroboros on one of the plates as a decoration. What was interesting was that 3 years prior I had learned from a former boss about it, a snake biting its own tail, but this time, the bartender explained it in a 3-dimensional sort of way, that the symbol is actually one where the snake is coiled to symbolize how we're all growing upwards.
It's still something I think about, since this picture was taken for one of my birthday dinners.
Part of my own deepening sense of spirituality since then was a fascination with symbols and signs -- after some reflection, I believe it is because I had been through so many "diverse" environments I started to feel lost -- and a sense of identity was stripped away. Clutching to symbols and sharing in the meaning of them with others helped provide some kind of anchor, a shared language in a sea where I was floating -- but it wasn't all so bad -- I could feel as just a particle in this vast Universe a kind of comfort, that I was part of a greater whole.
If you have made it this far, thank you for reading! 💚
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