By Wai Chan

You know that feeling you get when you’re craving raw fish?  Well that’s what I was experiencing yesterday, so after work I convinced Mr O to take me out for dinner at the local Japanese restaurant, Sushi California.

This establishment had its humble beginnings at the Williams Inn, but have moved to its current location just last summer and have since flourished.  Their menu is extensive and includes a variety of Japanese dishes, sashimi, traditional sushi and fusion sushi.  And if you’re not as keen on Japanese food as your companions are you will also find a selection of different Asian-type dishes, steak, and even western cuisine.

Now before I dive into the details that is my dinner, let’s go over some terminology first, shall we?  Sushi is rice that is topped or accompanied by other ingredients, and there are many subcategories within it.  For instance, the stereotypical sushi composed of a little bed of rice that is topped with a slice of raw fish is called nigiri sushi.  Nigiri refers to “hand formed”, which makes sense as that is how the rice bed is made.  Maki sushi refers to “rolled” sushi, such as our beloved California roll.

Now with this in mind, sashimi is *NOT* sushi.  There is no rice!  It is a subcategory of food all on its own, as distinct as tempura, gyoza, or sunomono.

We decided to partake in the all-you-can-eat menu as we like to try a little bit of everything at once.  How it works is you’re given a slip of paper with a list of food available and you simply mark down what you wish to eat, as well as the quantity.  But don’t feel compelled to order everything all at once because they do come back to see if you want more.  However, it’s a bit on the pricy side so if you’re not ready to dive in head first into the world of sushi then this may not be the cheapest option for you.  Alternatively, you may decide to try one of their bento boxes, which is essentially a cute dinner tray that is made up of sample portions of sushi, gyoza, tempura, salad, rice, miso soup and your choice of a main entrée.

For starters, we had miso soup, sunomono, and green salad.  Sunomono is the sweet vinaigrette that vermicelli noodles are soaked in and comes prettily arranged with carrots, cucumber slices, and lemon.  I love starting with this dish because it’s so tart and tangy, which kind of preps my taste buds for the saltiness of the soy sauce that is to come once the real food arrives.

The yam and prawn tempura arrived next, along with the gyoza, which had been deep-fried.  Shortly after we received our bowl of chicken teriyaki noodles.  Everything was incredibly tasty, but dinner didn’t get to that “ah ha!” moment until the waitress presented us with an artfully arranged platter just brimming with all sorts of sushi!  Oh yes… come to me baby!

 We stuck with the basic salmon and tuna sashimi, and the fish just melts in your mouth.  I love salmon sashimi though… I can’t even look at cooked salmon anymore without shaking my head!  As well, we had salmon and tuna in nigiri sushi form, along with ebi, which is cooked prawn.  I had also ordered a tamago nigiri, which is a sweet egg omelette, but for some reason it didn’t show up on the platter, but no matter… there was more than enough food here to keep me occupied.

Also presented on our sushi plate are avocado maki, salmon maki, and the crazy roll, which is my absolute favourite.  The crazy roll is one of Sushi California’s signature fusion roll and is basically a deep fried maki sushi.  On their ala carte menu there are 4 different types of crazy rolls.  However, only the Crazy Mama roll is available on their AYCE menu, which is a deep-fried California roll.  The crab mixture is slightly warmed from the cooking process, and the avocado is all nice and buttery.  The filling makes a wonderful contrast to the crispy, crunchy rice coating, and it’s topped with sweet Japanese mayo and a dab of sriracha hot sauce.  And because it’s been fried I actually prefer to dip this particular maki into the tempura sauce instead of soy sauce.  All this just to make the perfect bite…

So are you hungry yet?  I wish Mr O wouldn’t limit my sushi intake to just once a week… “Save some fish for the other folks,” he says… Bah!  But seriously, if you ever see me there feel free to stop by to say hi… I’ll be the girl stuffing her face with raw salmon.

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