College students have some of the weirdest tendencies when it comes to food.
They crave a ball-filled milk drink that tastes like creamer, stuff their stomachs with a warm cup of plastic noodles and for some odd reason, love to eat raw fish rolled in rice.
I, on the other hand, have dodged this trap for 22 years of my life, but sadly this act of evasion has come to an end.
Don’t get me wrong, I sure do love seafood with all my crabby heart, but a fish belongs on the grill and not raw in my mouth.
Shrimp has always been the little crustacean that I can’t get enough of, but it’s usually been grilled to a crisp.
Walking into Ariake Sushi, I had high hopes and an empty stomach that was not sure what to expect.
Crab is always fun to crack and make a mess, but never have I felt fear when it came to eating it.
Sushi had me more spooked than a little ball of rolled rice should.
Ariake Sushi sure did know how to relax a virgin raw-fish eater, the restaurant made me feel like I was a young boy again.
In the middle of the restaurant there was a flowing river with little wooden boats that ferried chef-crafted sushi for the customer’s choosing.
It was a magnificent sight, so naturally I sat at the river of sushi awaiting my first roll.
Never having had sushi in my life left me at a mild disadvantage when it came to ordering, nothing really looked appetizing because it looked all the same – raw and cold.
My brain remembered that quite literally every hipster in the world talks about California rolls. Thankfully so, the first plate that the little wooden boat delivered me was exactly that.
Good ol’ classic crab, avocado and cucumber inside rice and seaweed – cool.
That was my stepping stone. The moment I had never been waiting for, so I dove right in and shoved the first piece into my mouth soy sauceless.
To my surprise, it wasn’t awful.
It had a crunchy texture from the small seaweed wrap and left cold crab mush swashing around my mouth.
I couldn’t really taste the avocado but I didn’t mind, it was more crab than sushi.
Nerves eased. I prepared for my second venture, the Philadelphia roll.
Now you may be asking yourself, this is a Japanese cuisine, why are you getting two rolls named after places in America?
And my answer to that question is. . . I don’t think when I’m nervous.
The Philadelphia roll had salmon, avocado and cream cheese, which is a rough start considering I absolutely can’t stand cream cheese, but I thought this might change my mind.
It didn’t.
The cream cheese felt warm in my mouth which is extremely uncomfortable when everything else is cold and mushy.
I never tasted a hint of salmon because all I could feel on my tongue was avocado mush and cream cheese mush – and boy, that doesn’t taste good.
After two rolls, sushi is all tied up for me actually enjoying it and it all comes down to the final roll.
The tuna lover.
Within this roll there was white tuna, red tuna and avocado.
Believe it or not, I’ve never had tuna before, so I wasn’t really sure what I was thinking, but my taste buds wanted to live on the edge.
I can honestly say that I have never put anything more chewy in my mouth in my entire life.
I felt like a pelican that just swooped down and grabbed a fish out of the Pacific Ocean and was struggling to get the damn fish down its throat while the fish flopped around its gullet.
Minutes had to pass by before I could get it down, and by the end of the first piece, I couldn’t even imagine eating another.
I still did anyway.
The second was just as bad as the first and at that moment I had to reexamine why I was even doing this in the first place.
I waited 22 long years to try something that I can genuinely say I never want to eat ever again.
I can’t even tell you how much my bill was because I was so excited to leave the place.
If you love sushi, that’s great, but never ask me to go with you. Please.
