After a sad evening, gem and I have dinner at Zenko Sushi, our favorite sushi place. We sit at the bar in front of Eric, a sushi chef we’ve had before. We put in our initial order, and the food’s delicious. Then gem proceeds to ask Eric some questions.

“What’s your favorite kind of sushi,” she asks. He replies with a long list of fish. “Basically every kind?” gem asks. He points out that he doesn’t like squid, octopus, or shellfish.

“What’s your favorite food?” she asks.

“Mexican,” I whisper.

“Hmm,” he says. “Mexican food. Or pizza.”

gem gets excited and confused. “How’d you know?!”

“You asked him that last time,” I respond.

The three of us laugh about it, and Eric says that he remembers us. He points out that we usually have the same seats, although one time we sat over there, and he points toward the seats in front of Toshi. We do get Toshi sometime. Last time, Toshi began preparing our sushi as soon as he saw us start marking our sheet. The first roll was ready by the time we handed him our order paper.

Soon it was time for the most important question.

“What’s your favorite dinosaur?”

“After seeing Jurassic Park – the velociraptor.”

Heck yes. What sushi chef doesn’t like velociraptors? Lame ones, of course.

She asks him some other questions. “Who’s the roll master?”

“I don’t know. Is there a roll master?”

“Are you the roll master?”

“Am I the roll master?”

“Did you come up with anything on the menu?”

“No, the menu was already designed when I started working here.”

I ask, “who’s your favorite customer,” pointing to gem with my head.

“All my customers.” That answer’s no fun.

gem tells him about the taco roll she had at Gatten Sushi in Irvine. It was terrible. I add that their fried chicken roll was the best thing on the menu, which exemplifies how bad their sushi is.

Are you ready for the reveal of something incredible?

“Do you know the most interesting roll I’ve ever had?” he asks. “I once had a roll called the Cowboy Roll. It had filet mignon in it. And it was only fourteen dollars!”

I must find this Cowboy Roll and try it.

Then again, that could be hard to find. Maybe I’ll just go back to Zenko Sushi and sit in front of Eric.