The Sushi Experiment

Earlier this year, Matt and I went to California with some friends for a little vacation before the guys went on a tour. We were in the throws of our experimental vegetarian period so a trip to San Francisco and outlying cities was perfect. Everything restaurant had vegetarian items on the menu - and not just "vegetarian" items like spaghetti hold the meatballs. We're talkin real California hippy vegetarian cuisine.

We ended up in Sacramento one night to meet up with a group flying in from Omaha. We were in town so we stopped at Guy Fieri's restaurant, Tex Wasabi. Tex Wasabi is a sushi/BBQ fusion weirdo restaurant. If you've ever watched a show starring Guy Fieri you probably know that the dude is not a fan of vegetarian food. But I thought, it's a sushi joint (kind of) so we should be okay.

I was only kind of wrong.

The thing that Tex Wasabi is known for is it's really strange sushi rolls. Like, BBQ beef and french fries shoved in a roll. Everyone at the table ordered these kinds of rolls and ended up saying it was one of the best meals they had on the trip. I ordered an Asian slaw appetizer thing and a veggie roll. They. Were. Both. Terrible. My only regret from that trip is that I didn't eat meat at that dinner.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when we went to a party and the host made a platter of sushi for everyone. It was kind of late, maybe 11:00, so everyone but me was a wee bit on the drunk side. I sat in front of Keith (host) and watched him make sushi for probably close to an hour. He explained everything to me and made it sound relatively simple. I tried a few bites (Yes, I'm pregnant and I ate 2 bites of raw fish. Someone call social services.) and it tasted better than the run of the mill sushi restaurants dotted here and there all over Omaha. Which isn't saying a whole lot, really. In my opinion there's only one really good sushi place in Omaha that's worth dropping $75 at. Aside from special recipe items that most other places have, it is all the same. And it's all overpriced. But I digress.

The point here is that I got to thinking about my cooking lesson and Tex Wasabi and I'm pretty sure I can do this at home. Matt and I are going to make our own faux sushi dinner Friday night. No raw fish consumption this time though. I'll wait until I'm not pregnant to give myself food poisoning. Here's the proposed menu:

shrimp spring rolls
crab rangoon rolls
spicy veggie rolls
BBQ pork and slaw rolls
orange chicken teriyaki rolls

I'm guessing there's going to be a lot of leftovers...