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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   2656 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 26, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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What is the appeal of sushi? Specifically the raw fish. I decided to try a big bowl of raw fish at my local sushi bar, and like, it was fine. I ate it, but all I could think about was how much better it would be thrown on the grill with some MSG.

As a man who's lived in Japan 25 years, and who goes to sushi restaurants regularly, but does not eat the sushi that is served in these restaurants, I do not know. I do know that the people around me who eat sushi and enjoy it have various levels of quality in mind to rate sushi and sushi restaurants, and sushi restaurants outside Japan are always relegated to "not really sushi" by these people. Even in Japan people are finicky. There is a conveyor-sushi up the road from me where we sometimes go, and if my father-in-law ever is up to visit and goes there with us he will either not eat or eat one or two pieces grudgingly and you can see he is trying to hold back his disgust. (Edit: Because he thinks their sushi is shit. He only goes to places he thinks have high quality sushi.)

Japanese tastes are not my tastes. Fatty tuna or マグロ maguro (see the correction to my innacuracy in this below from /u/bonsaii ) is generally held to be a delicacy. But then so is Kobe beef which I find interesting but it doesn't feel like eating beef to me when I eat it. More like something you would eat on another planet where they bring out something and say "We have tried to create something that is similar to your earth-food, but we feel we have improved upon the taste and texture" in their alien language that you can understand for some reason. You then eat the wagyu Kobe beef and you see what they mean, but you know that you will enjoy more that tenderized beef off the grill at your buddy's house more. A lot more. And where are the baked potatoes? Not in Japan, I will tell you that right now. I won't even get into chawan mushi or natto or namako or the many other foods that I see people eating and enjoying as if they are all part of an elaborate prank to get me to also eat it and rave about it. I refuse.

I recently went to Japan (at long last) and decided to give a conveyor-belt chain place (I think it was Hama Sushi?) a try. It was shockingly mediocre - the best things I could say about it is that the automation was cute, the food was obscenely cheap and Japan being Japan I did not need to tremble in expectation of certain food poisoning. In terms of flavour, you can do much better for not too much money in any medium-sized Western city if you look hard enough. In the end this was the second worst meal of the whole trip.

I always feel poignancy when I think about how most people in Japan have never had a good American-style inauthentic burrito before.

All they've had is taco bell, at most. I ate there once and found it to be extremely strange. Every random tacqueria I go to is similar to each other, even if they vary in quality, and taco bell was very different. In a not-good way.

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