Tag: sushi

food

Sushiactive is alive

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Back in 1999 when I was hitting my sushi loving stride (having started to eat it only a few years earlier) and starting my website at the same time, I decided to create a site that matched pictures of sushi with a Mortal Kombat style voice over / description feature – basically an interactive menu that one could use to make sense of this strange and foreign culinary world that I was in. The site was to be like the paper menus that one sees in sushi restaurants, the ones with the photos of the fish and rolls along with their phonetic Japanese name and English name, except again with that booming voice over. For instance, you might see a crab stick fly into the frame and then hear, “Kani! Crab! Delicious!” I decided to name it “Sushiactive.”
Like so many of my great ideas, this one never went anywhere, aside from living as a flash trailer of sushi flying around that I developed and which then lived on my site for the past decade, that is before the Sevensquared to Keymaster Productions move when I took it down. My friends would ask me about it from time to time and while I would always say, “it’s in development” that wasn’t true. I gave up on developing the idea years ago.
Like so many ideas that were spawned during Web 1.0, this one was ahead of its time, a little over a solid decade to be exact. With the rise of mobile computing via “phones that are really mini-computers that happen to also make phone calls,” this idea was one that many people had. “Order Sushi Like a Native, and Know What You’re Eating” published back on 6/8/11 reviews phone applications that all mimic my idea. The last one mentioned, SushiGuru, is also the only one uses my VO idea. From the article:

Unlike many other competing apps, SushiGuru also has audio pronunciations. If you ever opted for a California roll simply because it was easier to say than Aburasokomutsu, a kind of mackerel, this is a worthwhile feature.

I like being ahead of my time but at the same time I am wistful and rueful that others have implemented it. I’ll need to review what other ideas I’ve had that I’m not acting on. I think it’s time to revisit my nascent “Little Classics” publishing model.

ramblings

Poke versus Tomoe

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I have been a big fan of Poke, an incredible sushi restaurant by me, for some time now. Since I moved nearby last April, I’ve eaten there on average 2 – 3 times a month. Its BYOB policy is fantastic for oenophiles and budget conscious connoisseurs alike. When the topic of sushi restaurants pops up in conversation, I boast about my neighborhood haunt, going as far to say that it’s the uptown Tomoe. Yes, the legendary Tomoe, where my good friend Mike ordered so much food one time, they refused to serve him, saying that he couldn’t possibly eat all of that fish. We convinced the staff that he’s a whale when it comes to sushi and that no fish would go to waste. Sure enough, he ate everything on his plate (which was more than what the other 3 people ate combined). The staff was so impressed that they brought us a bottle of sake on the house to honor this incredible feat. It was funny then and its still funny now.

The calling card for both of these establishments is a stark décor coupled with superb and sublime sushi. Poke is completely devoid of any décor – it is a plain white empty box with literally nothing on the walls. You feel like you are in somebody’s studio apartment which has been gutted and is in the process of being rebuilt. Tomoe has a bit of décor compared to Poke but all it really has are posters tacked onto the wall. In Zagats, Poke gets a 26 for food and a 4 for décor; a difference of 22 and the only difference I know of that is greater than twenty in the entire guide. Tomoe has less of a spread, though only slightly, as it gets a 27 for food and an 8 for décor; a difference of 19. I guess a poster or two goes a long way.

Mike has been dreaming about his epic meal at Tomoe for years now so I recently took him with me to Poke so that he could compare the two. Unfortunately, my ego took a slight hit as he was not head over heals for the joint. While he loved the rolls, which he declared to be better than those served at Tomoe, he said that the sushi was just okay. He didn’t think the toro was anything special and overall he thought that the pieces were on the small to average size (Tomoe is known for its oversized pieces of sushi). The more I thought about it, the more that I thought that he may be right.

My plan is to, for the first time in over a year, head back to Thompson Street to hit up Tomoe and see what that extra point for food gets ya. Hopefully the line won’t be too long (i.e. over a half an hour) and hopefully I’ll be bringing Mike with me. While I’ll be brown bagging a Sapporo while I wait on the street, as I cannot bring my own alcohol, I’m hoping Mike’s eating prowess once again nets us some free booze.

In case you are curious, here are the reviews from Zagats:

Poke: “Exceptional sushi” sliced by a “friendly chef” at “bargain” rates is slightly muted by the “grim”, “cramped” setup at this East Side Japanese BYO – but regulars say “if you drink enough sake, you’ll think it’s Nobu.”

Tomoe: “Neither rain nor sleet nor snow” deter diehards from this Village Japanese and its “affordable”, “monster-size” sushi that “melts in your mouth like buttah”; defying the “nonexistent decor” and “postage stamp”–dimensions, “ouch”-inducing lines wrap “around the block” every single day.