(no subject)
Dinner was decided on a whim. We talked about maybe meeting for dinner downtown, after both our jobs were done. Noel mentioned the karaage restaurant near where I work, but they close early, they're lunch only. Keeping in the same general food area, I suggested the Ohana, the Hawaiian place near downtown. We decided to go there.
After work, after I clocked out and discovered I'd lost my glasses, I walked over to the Ohana and got a table and a large glass of Pog. (Yes, they have Pog on the menu for nostalgic islanders, and Spam.) Noel arrived, and we looked the menus up and down. We decided to get edamame beans, robot, and pork ribs -- they do a splendid baby back rib there, marinated in fruity sauce and grilled until the bones fall out of the meat; and Noel wanted sushi, but was unsure what to get. The server suggested uni, or urchin, which she described as "an acquired taste". In the spirit of adventure Noel ordered it, along with spider roll and some tuna.
We ate edamame. The bastarding things kept hopping out of their pods and jumping at me, making Noel laugh. One even hopped down the front of my shirt. I buttoned it all the way up my neck and kept eating them.
The food arrived. I set about eating my robota; Noel mixed some soy sauce and wasabi, looked at the uni, looked again. Then she bravely picked a piece up and bit into it.
Her expressions changed rapidly. She blinked, squinted; chewed, paused; intense dislike creased her eyes shut and pointed her mouth down; she gagged a little, looked for her napkin, fought the impuse; somehow got it down and took in a deep breath.
When she could speak again, the gist of her thoughts was that it was a bad experiment. "It's the worst thing I've ever had in my mouth .. " she said. "It tastes like a salted slug."
In the spirit of inquiry I wiggled a bit off the end and put it in my own mouth. I don't think I squinted or gagged, but it was like eating a brine soaked sponge. I'm not a fan of that fish taste at the best of times, so it was not a possibility that I'd finish the uni.
The server had helpfully bought a lemon wedge for Noel to purge the taste from her mouth, and there was a generous amount of pickled ginger for us to both nibble on. And the wonderfulness of the ribs and the other sushi took away the disgust: Noel even persuaded me to eat a little of the spider roll, and though I rarely eat sushi I enjoyed the bits of it I had. I had another Pog, and the server came to tell us she'd taken the uni off the bill, because we didn't like it. (We tipped big, in response.)
The desserts there weren't inspiring. Ice cream packed in pound cake and deep-fried would have stopped our hearts, so we settled our tab and walked a few blocks up the street to the Virginia Inn. It was night in Belltown. In the lobby of an apartment building a guy was wiggling a crazy rag on the carpet, which jumped up and was a little moppy dog, who was running around like crazy. A guy with breath like a distillery braced me for change.
There was a crowd in the Inn but the owner graciously sat us at our favorite table near the window. He told us that it was called the Architects Table, because architects from the nearby firms come and sit there so they can look out the window at the splendor of the 1910s buildings on all four corners of the intersection.
We ordered dessert. Noel received a slice of chocolate decadence cake that was almost solid. I had a tiramisu dripping in sweet cream. There was gentle Brazilian music playing, quiet conversation from the diners at their tables and the folks at the bar. It was such a beautiful night.