New Sushi Experience

Erik the Hairy Swede and I went downtown to Fuji-ya (465 N. Wabasha) for a group sushi outing. With TallBrad out of action since his ankle tendon was mysteriously ripped, our business unit abandoning us (mayhap the snow?), our regular group abandoning us, our extended group abandoning us, and my friend Kyle abandoning us, it was...Erik and me. Because it was Fuji-Ya's happy hour, we indulged in several large beers and a variety of your run of the mill rolls and nigiri. However, toward the last order I decided I wanted something interesting, and was going to order both the something interesting and an order of wasabied tobiko, in case the interesting wasn't edible. Erik confessed he had never had tobiko and thought it was larger fish eggs. I assured him it was not, and he aggreed to try it. At which point the waitress said, "With quail egg?"

"What?"

"With quail egg?"

I immediately thought back to last night when I watched the first half of the movie Gozu, and the main character, a Yakuza, had eaten some sort of nasty pasted chicken curd with a quail egg on top, only to get violently ill (and then to question what bodily fluids had been added to the chicken). I looked sufficiently worried.

"It gives it a creamy taste," the waitress assured me, "I won't eat it any other way now."

So I gave in. Particularly as it satisfied two criteria - the tobiko and "something new".

It was good - surprisingly so. I have to admit that it was actually pretty damn tasty and the egg just gave the tobiko another layer of texture and flavor that was enjoyable and not nasty the way mayo with spices in your sushi is nasty. If anyone would have told me when I was younger that I'd like fish eggs soaked in wasabi, wrapped in seaweed, topped with raw quail egg, I'd have told them they'd lost their mind. Now I just say, "yum."