It's 10pm on a Friday night, I've had my dinner a couple of hours ago, but here I am, staring at the screen, and thinking of... takoyaki.
Yes- takoyaki- the popular Japanese snack made out of wheat-based batter that's rolled into balls and filled with little pieces of octopus inside.
Thing is, I'm not thinking about (just) any takoyaki.
I'm thinking about the ones from Sushi Plus that I had a couple of weeks ago.
It's quite funny- they have a conveyor belt- they have a fairly extensive menu- but the only thing that sticks out in my head right now is their takoyaki.
Maybe because they serve it in this really cute pan that keeps it nice and hot and they've got all this green laver and dried bonito and takoyaki sauce drizzled over it.
You know, it's true when they say that first impressions matter.
I probably would not have remembered so much had it not been for what I felt when I popped the first ball into my mouth.
Warm, soft, almost tender, the ball had just the right amount of chew and the octopus inside wasn't tough, hard or dry.
I wish we got to order it more often.
But diet demands us that we go for a myriad of other dishes when we're there.
One of our favorites, of course, is the salmon.
We usually have the salmon sashimi, the salmon belly over sushi, and this dish of lightly seared salmon sushi topped with delicious mayonnaise dressing.
Honestly, I don't know what it is about this salmon that endears my palate, but I somehow find myself feeling happy when I get to order it every time.
That being said, salmon and salmon sushi aren't the only foods we order.
There're others too.
Like this spread which we ordered for a celebration meal late last year.
There was salmon belly.
There was takoyaki.
We had a kushiyaki stick of grilled scallops.
And we had a plate of wagyu beef that came like one long strip over rice of sushi.
It was a very pleasant meal.
I loved how the salmon belly (complete with fin) came with a little portion of sea salt that helped to ease the fishy taste from the fish.
I loved how the wagyu beef also came with a little bit of green tea salt as well.
Beef and green tea salt surprisingly go quite well together.
I can't remember whether we had another bowl of grilled beef with rice. (We might have)
But I certainly remember the salmon don.
Because I took all the salmons off the rice, collected the sea salt and green tea salt from the other two plates, and ate the fish separately from the rice. :D