Books and Fish

[drcpunk]

mnemex and I went to NYRSF and then to meet his sister at Sushi Toro.

Gene Wolfe's The Knight is sounding like one important book. It won't be eligible for the Mythopoeic Award, as it's the first half of the story, but when the second half, The Wizard, comes out, it probably will be. Guess I'd better start reading now. If you want to know more about why this book is such an important work of fantasy, check out the upcoming issue of The New York Review of Science Fiction.

Sushi Toro has really good cheap fish -- pieces of sushi and sashimi for $1 - 2 apiece, $3 for stuff I generally don't want anyway. It also has exquisite fish if one gets the omakase, aka Chef's Choice. This is much more expensive. $20 and up. The times I saw mnemex order one and the time I had one, it came with a set number of wonderful pieces.

This time, we met mnemex's sister and all ordered the sushi omakase. The chef traditionally asks what the customer likes. Unless there is something you -don't- like, the correct answer is to say, "I like everything." You're trusting the chef. And we trust this chef.

mnemex's sister did request no eel. Or, more accurately, we were sitting at the bar, and she was explaining to us that she'd rather not do eel. When the chef took our order, he said, nodding at her, "No eel."

Instead of making 3 whole sets of X pieces of fish, he gave us each piece one at a time. And he was prepared to go on making fish for as long as we wanted. And each piece was magnificent.

I don't know what all of it was. I know there was lobster sushi, the first time I think I've ever had that. mnemex's sister tried a bite of his eel, and allowed as how it was pretty good. This is eel several cuts about the good eel I'm used to.

There was something with cut up scallop. And the thing we ended on was something with black caviar on top. mnemex and his sister think it was lobster salad. They may be correct.

At one point, the chef directed the waiters to bring us more hot tea. Once mnemex explained why it had arrived, I started drinking it, figuring the chef had a reason for doing this. Part may have been that he saw we were drinking a lot of tea. Part was that I don't do ginger, and the tea was a better palate cleanser than cold water.

We had green tea ice cream, mine and mnemex's with red bean sauce on top.

Not an inexpensive meal. Not one I can do often. But, oh man, it was good.