Step-by-Step Sushi

It was worth the wait. "It" being sushi. I have been waiting since before college for various friends to take me for sushi because I was just too nervous to go alone. It wasn’t the dining alone, of course. I have regular “date nights” where I go out to a solo dinner and a movie. I find something exciting and yet also relaxing about choosing where to go and what to have – having only to please myself.


As for the sushi, it was the food itself that made me nervous. I don’t know why – I love fish and seafood and the look of maki rolls had always appealed to me. I guess this was one of those rare times when I preferred a guide to help me embark on a new and interesting cuisine. My pointed evasion of sushi lasted quite a long time until I started trying various non-raw rolls like California, Philadelphia, Boston, cucumber, and avocado. Something about ordering Japanese food only with the names of U.S. cities made me feel like I was cheating. Sushi, after all, is more than just the familiar rolls and most contain some raw element. It was time for the next step.

I broke out my sushi mat from Pearl River Mart and made my own California rolls at home with a little help from Sunrise Mart on Stuyvesant Street. Much like the excitement of ordering dinner for one, I got a kick out of browsing through a grocery store that featured packages with little-to-no English. I found SushiParty soy wrappers to take the place of Nori (the seaweed sheets used to wrap maki) and because I knew I wouldn’t have the patience to make rice, I bought a pint from Sushi Hana in Brooklyn. I rolled carefully (one with rice inside and one with rice outside) and the result was both tasty and colorful - the soy wrappers come in green, pink, orange and yellow.

Finally, a few weeks ago, a friend took me as his guest to a restaurant called Jin on the Lower East Side with a large group of his cast mates. I ordered a Shrimp Tempura roll – again, nothing raw about it, but I thought it would be a tiny step up from a plain old veggie roll. My friend – one of the friends who had planned to take me out for sushi – fulfilled the plan by offering me a piece of either Spicy Tuna or Spicy Salmon roll, which I accepted. It’s ridiculous; I don’t even remember which fish was my first raw fish experience!

I loved it. I guess the way I was chewing made my friend think I was going to spit it out, but I really did like it. Let's say I was trying to take in the moment and really enjoy the flavor. There are still many other raw pieces of Japanese cuisine that I should try, like a big hunk of sashimi, but I was happy to have finally taken my big step of eating raw sushi. I had unnecessarily built up the occasion, but it did not disappoint in the least. If I knew what kind it was, I would definitely order it again!