Sushi = Adventure ???

Some of the most memorable times have come while eating Sushi! Not sure why this is really, just is. The reason this is coming up is because I was watching the All Star game tonight, and a commercial for Taco Bell came on showing a stunt in Bethel, Alaska.

Bethel, AK

Quinhagak, AK

This jogged my memory. Several years ago, Dad, Bobby, Michael (my brothers) and I were fly fishing near Quinhagak, AK. Best fishing ever! Anyway, not the topic of this blog... fish yes, fishing no.... :-) We had flown in Anchorage, and from there to Bethel, then to Quinhagak. When we finished a week later, we flew the same route back to Anchorage. When we got into Bethel, we had some time to spare while waiting for our connector to Anchorage. We decided to go out for some lunch with some friends that we were with. We had a couple of hours. We hailed a taxi and asked for a recommendation for a restaurant. The guy recommended this little sushi place... It looked like log cabin but had good sushi. I don't remember everything about it, but long story short... We waited for a while for our sushi to come out, enjoyed our meal, and as we were wrapping things up, our other travel companions back at the airport called us to let us know the plane would be boarding soon. Not an issue really, except the main roads to the airport were closed for construction!!!! We had to take back roads (dirt) (typical Colorado back roads) across the tundra to find a way back to the main road to get back to the airport. The whole time the driver telling us that he THOUGHT he knew where he was going, and he THOUGHT he was going to get us back in time.... So going to eat Sushi that time led us to an adventure of the back roads of the tundra around Bethel, Alaska. (we made it as boarding was taking place...)

The first time I enjoyed sushi was at East by Southwest, in Durango, CO. To this day the nicest place I have ever enjoyed Sushi! A definite stop if ever in Durango and you enjoy Sushi! We were on family vacation with my family and Natalie had come along (we were dating.) The place was amazing! We sat on the floor, Indian style under a low rise table. We had our own private eating area, and everyone picked out 1-2 rolls. So here we are sitting at this table in our own private room telling stories while drinking multiple bottles of wine and we had Sushi rolls coming to us 2 at a time for a good period of time. Not sure exactly how many we had, but I would guess around 20 rolls or more to go along with 8-10 bottles of wine? Good times for sure, and one of my favorite memories! Oh yeah, the Sushi was absolutely amazing and creatively presented!

Caterpillar Roll

Dragon Roll (Pics Taken from Gallery on East by Southwest Website)

The last story that comes to mind took place in Springfield, IL with some of our good friends who live there. I don't remember if we were living there, or just visiting at the time. We went to a little hole in the wall place that we had been to before, and has great sushi, plus ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI!!!! This is really why we went, but only 2 of us ended up getting the all you can eat deal.

One Stipulation - You had to eat everything you received and were charged $1 for each uneaten piece left on your plate!

I understood this, no biggie. The reason it's so funny (I am laughing as I sit here and type this...) is because our friend, I'll just call him Paul, had never had Sushi before, or just didn't understand what a Sushi roll was. The other reason it's so funny is because he and his wife had just purchased a new house! A big investment to be sure!
We all had placed our orders, and Paul had filled out his Sushi card for what he wanted. Nobody really thought anything. Paul and I were the ones getting Sushi, everyone else said they may have a piece of ours or something (even though sharing is strictly forbidden....and they watch!!!) I ordered 2 or 3 rolls for myself, and Paul was under the assumption that he had ordered about the same. Only to find out when they brought out our food that Paul had actually ordered 8-10 rolls!!!! He had misunderstood, thinking that he was ordering 8-10 pieces.... LOL!!!! His wife was furious with him at the thought that he may have to pay so much money for uneaten pieces. I was able to help him since we had both ordered the all you can eat. The servers must have known he messed up because they were watching us like hawks to make sure nobody else was helping him... they couldn't see the amount of sushi being passed under the table. I was not much help since I already had my 3 rolls for myself. The others helped a bit. Because his wife was so pissed at him, he was threatening to put pieces in his pockets and take them to the bathroom to flush them! With a bit of creativity and some help, we (as a table) were able to get them all gone so he actually didn't have to pay extra for any of them. I still laugh out loud about this blunder though! One of the funniest things ever, but probably more so if you were there.

And one of our favorite places to eat Sushi in the Valley... is at Nozawa in Vail. We don't always go there because there is another in Avon and it's closer, but the dining room and ambience at Vail is much more interesting and fun when we get the opportunities.

They have these Sushi boats, as many places do I think, but this was the first time I had seen one, and it's really cool to have a community sushi boat to pick off of!

hmm... now I am beginning to crave some Sushi!