don't be afraid to try new things, unless they're icky

I went a local Japanese restaurant for dinner with my ex-roommate. We're both novices at the Japanese food thing, which is what I like about it. It's all so new and exciting. We were looking over the menu, and I'd been there a few more times than she was, so I was pointing out somethings that I'd tried before. We found a type of sushi called uni, which is made of sea urchin. I pointed it out to her on the menu.

"I wonder what urchin tastes like?" I asked sort of rhetorically.

"Ooh! Isn't that the stuff that can kill you?" she shot back, looking a bit too excited by the prospect. I'm not sure if it can kill you, but it certainly added an extra danger to the dish--whether it was real or imagined.

"I don't know," I answered. "But we have to try it."



The waitress came over and we started ordering; we got one of the house special rolls, hirame (halibut), unagi (fresh water eel) maguro sashimi and asked for an order of uni. The waitress said, "Hold on a second," and then called into the kitchen. She then reported back from the chef that they were all out of sea urchin. We were visably disappointed.

"Have you ever had urchin before?" the waitress asked.

We said no, but we were curious, so we wanted to try it. The waitress said, "It feels like tongue. I ate it once on a dare."

We weren't so disappointed after that. Though after drinking the liter-sized bottle of Asahi, I'm sure I could've handled that urchin no problem.