Tag Archives: zenko sushi

Birthdays, Restaurant Week, and more

There were lots of things happening last week! Saturday the 22nd was gem’s birthday. I baked her a turtle cake, which I talked about previously. She and Edward came to my place for cake before we went out to celebrate. gem wasn’t sure what she wanted to do ahead of time, but she decided to go to Color Me Mine.

I painted a Horde (from World of Warcraft) plate to go with my Horde stein. I had actually painted the stein years ago, but it broke during the firing process and I never got around to fixing it. Luckily the people at Color Me Mine this time told me that if I brought it, they’d glue it together for me, which they did!

After painting, we wen to Gen Korean BBQ. We got there just before last call, so we were trying to order a bunch of food. The waiter was nice enough to just pick stuff for us, and he placed a big order. We were all stuffed, but we managed to get through it.

Sunday morning Collin and I went to Newport to eat at Zimzala. It was fairly empty, but that just meant that we got to hear some rocking tunes from Danny Maika and make a lot of requests.

Later that night, I went to Zenko Sushi with Anela and gem for the weekend’s second all-you-can-eat meal. We had a nice time!

By Monday I had gained 4.70 lbs since Friday. That was expected. Unfortunately, I felt a little sick, but I didn’t think much of it. Monday night Duncan treated Collin and me to Chipotle. It was fun eating with them. We brought it back to the house and watched… uh… Twitch Plays Pokemon on the living room TV.

I guess Chipotle was the last straw for my stomach. Something made me pretty sick, and I was up most of the night. I ended up calling out sick Tuesday and Wednesday. On the plus side, I lost all that weight I gained and much more! Tuesday morning I still tried to eat normally, but my stomach rejected everything. Even my mouth rejected normal foods! I chipped a tooth eating a protein bar. I should note that the protein bar isn’t crunchy in any way.

gem recommended I make soup, so I did just that. My stomach didn’t seem to hate it, so I ate it Tuesday night, all day Wednesday, and early on Thursday.

I was still incredibly bummed about Harold Ramis dying as well, so I decided to spend some of my limited waking time watching Ghostbusters. Let’s not dwell on this, because I’ll get depressed.

I was feeling a lot better although not perfect by Thursday. I finished the soup for my lunch that day. Late that night, gem came over because it was my birthday and she had a gift for me. She bought a cast iron skillet! I had been wanting one for a while, so that was pretty cool. We also decided to order pizza. It was a terrible idea since I was getting over food poisoning, but it was also my birthday and I love pizza. Luckily my stomach accepted it without complaint.

Friday I celebrated OC Restaurant Week by going to Marrakesh for Moroccan food with Collin, Duncan, and Mimi. The food was delicious, just like I remembered it. I had a tasty salad, lamb, baklava, and tea. I also had a Lebanese beer and some mixed drink called a Belly Dancer. It was tasty, but I can’t remember what was in it.

After dinner, we all headed back to our place to hang out, watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and have some wine. There might have been an extraordinary amount of Snapchatting as well.

On Saturday I went to The Melting Pot with gem and Edward to celebrate my birthday. I’d been there a couple years earlier for my birthday and really liked it. It didn’t let me down! First there was a tasty salad. Next there was a Wisconsin cheese trio with bread, veggies, and apples. For the main course there was a nice broth with chicken, steak, mushroom ravioli, shrimp, and lobster tail. There might have been a glass of wine and dirty martini in there too!

For dessert we had dark chocolate fondue with marshmallow cream and crumbled Oreos. We dipped Rice Krispy treats, brownies, pound cake, bananas, strawberries, cherries, and cheesecake. The cheesecake dipped in the chocolate was so amazing! Because it was my birthday, they also brought me a chocolate covered strawberry with a candle. The waiter told Edward to sing for me because he wasn’t going to do it. He mentioned something about how it’s too bad nobody had a ukulele. Unfortunately, we didn’t have gem’s ukulele with us.

So that was my week! Being sick was pretty miserable, but I had a nice birthday and enjoyed celebrating gem’s as well.

Wasabi elephant

When we went to Zenko Sushi recently, we were asked, as we are every time, “table or bar?” After responding that we wanted “bar,” the hostess took us to two seats in front of Eric and remarked “I know you like these seats.” Sweet!

As usual, dinner was fantastic. gem asked Eric, “can you make a roll that looks like a dragon?” He thought about it and said “no, but I can make an elephant. It’s not edible though. Well, I guess it is if you want.” Then he proceeded to make that fantastic piece of art shown in the photo above!

He did get eaten in a way. Here you can see our wasabi elephant taking a bath! Tasty.

I also took back the mayorship from Tam. I should meet Tam and go get sushi with him some day.

Eric likes velociraptors; I like Zenko Sushi

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.