[brivette]

Great article!

[Chode]

uuuhhh... i thought sushi was rice rolls and that sushimi was raw fish???

[G.Mason]

I never understood why someone would take good bait and eat it raw, when all they would have to do is put some on a hook and catch a perfectly good food fish, broil it, bake it, or fry it and have a feast. ;)

[fight_truth_decay]

I am not a sushi fan, as I dislike all the rice,seaweed etc wraps with it; but am a big sashimi fan with wasabi and soy sauce mixed.. Fresh Water Eel (Unagi) and tuna are my favorites! Wasabi peanuts (Trader Joes) wasabi are great as well. I prefer those over the Wasabi peas.

[Maceman]

I happen to be an expert on this topic because I recently put in a stint as a chef at an actual sushi restaurant.

I never out in a stint as a sushi chef, but I did get into a friendly sword fight with a sushi chef in the parking lot behind the restaurant one night in 1990 -- back when I was studying the Korean zen sword art of Shim Gum Do.

I was a regular customer at the Sho Gun restaurant back then, and got friendly with the chef. It turned out that he had been a student of Kendo (Japanese Sword), and one night we decided to go at it with a pair of wooden swords during his break to compare styles.

I don't know if it's fair to say that I won the encounter, but he quit before I did.

[cripplecreek]

I'm afaid I live in a remote wilderness region where the fish is only sushi until it is cooked.

[MotleyGirl70]

But the trick is that it's served with a green condiment called ''wasabi,'' which is the Japanese word for ''nuclear horseradish.''

LOL!

I eat sushi a few times a year, but I only get the California rolls to be safe. There's something about eating raw fish that grosses me out. It's the texture of it when it's raw.

You know you put too much wasabi on your sushi when your eyes start to water and your nose starts to burn.

[lawgirl]

Dave Barry is 58? wow I thought he was like 45 or something. On a sidenote not related to his age, he is so funny!

[martin_fierro]

Sushi is OK in my book, but no fugu for me.

[RightWingAtheist]

I LOOOOOOVE sushi, and have it at least once a week. Spider rolls (soft shell crab with sprouts, lettuce and wasabi mayo) and any thing with salmon are my faves. There are several good sushi places here in Minneapolis, and when I returned home to Canada this Christmas, my dad asked me if I was eating more oriental food. I said yes, and asked how he knew, and he said that my weight gain was consistent with a rice-based diet. For the record, my dad is an endrocrinologist, so he gets paid to notice these things.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

o'er the clam parts we watched.

That is too funny!!!

Wasabi is nothing more than horseradish dyed green and a zillion dollars less. Yes, it is tasty, like horseradish dyed green.

[nuconvert]

Dave meets sushi, pong

[skinkinthegrass]

...green condiment called ''wasabi,''

What is he talking about? Fresh Wasabi is good stuff, its not that hot! ...what a wimp. ...Now, Habanero Peppers are hot.

[Who dat?]

The greatest sushi place I ever ate at was a Korean restaurant at around 400 East 14th Street in San Leandro, CA.

Another place that was supposed to be THE sushi spot locally was on A Street in Hayward.

Their sushi was ok but the best dish in the joint was called beef foilyaki. Never heard of it before and never seen it anywhere but there. Mmmm.

[buckleyfan]

Great - now I have to see if I have enough $$ to eat sushi tonight.

Especially after seeing the pictures... ;)

[torchthemummy]

Dave Barry is hilarious. I am just finishing his book, "Dave Barry Slept Here - A Sort Of History Of The United States". As one review says (LA Times - well a broken clock is right twice a day): "The better you know the original, the funnier it gets."

Two of the running gags are replacing every date with "October 8", his son's birthday, and peppering lengthier "male achievments" passages with a variation on the single line, "...and women and minorities were making many important contributions" then moving on to another male achievement.

His best in my opinion. Hilarious.

[ExSoldier]

And so when Bok An, the proprietor of Sakura, my local sushi restaurant in Coral Gables, Fla., invited me to be a guest sushi chef, I enthusiastically answered: ''No!'' I was afraid that I'd have to touch an eel. I am 51 years old, and I did not get this far by touching eels. But Bok assured me that we would stick to basic fish species such as tuna, salmon and cucumber.

I live in Coral Gables and IMHO, TAISHO is a far superior sushi restaurant to Sakura! Miako is very good as well, but more expensive for less food.

[MarkL]

Before I give you the details, I should explain, for the benefit of those of you who live in remote wilderness regions such as Iowa, what sushi is. Basically, it is a type of cuisine developed by the Japanese as part of an ancient tradition of seeing what is the scariest thing they can get you to eat raw.

Here in Kansas City, we're modern and urban enough to know what sushi is... That's the japanese word for "BAIT."

Mark

[MarkL]

I realize that this is strictly a "cultural thing," but I happen to believe that the American culture is superior... Especially when it comes to food. I mean, for goodness sake, a lot of what they normally eat seems to come up on "Fear Factor!"

I realize that they eat all sorts of things that we might call "exotic," all over the world, but give me a big hunk of charred, dead cow flesh, over cold, quivering amphibians any day!

Seriously, sometimes when I watch "Iron Chef," I get the feeling that the food they eat was actually a carry-over from WWII, in order to keep US troops from invading ("Sure, you are welcome here, American GI. Why don't you try this delicious pickeled eel to start off your dinner!"). To paraphrase a line from the movie, "So I married an Axe Murderer," "Most of what they serve sounds like it comes from losing a bet!"

Mark

[SamAdams76]

Maybe sushi is good for the people who live over in Japan. But here in America, the only people I see eating it is the yuppies who always seem to have to prove that they are upscale and trendy. These are the same people who walk around the office with those designer waters and they name their kids with designer names like Toby and Kaitlen.

I tried sushi myself and I wanted to gag. The only time I was able to keep it down was when I was at a Japanese restaurant (the type where they cook in front of you) and got to wash it down with lots of saki.

Saki. Saki good!