Raw Fish

When you live in Rochester, MN, there aren't very many chances to have some real good, authentic sushi. In fact, whenever I'm with my friends and the urge to chow overcomes us we usually lean towards either a pizza or Taco Bell (89 cent burritos? Hell yeah!).

But when a new Japanese restaurant opened up recently, a group of us decided to go try it.

Taking the chance to dress up (we've been wearing sweatpants all break!), everyone headed over to the new place.

It was definitely a very pretty place to eat (this is not the best photo to prove that, so you'll have to take my word for it).

I ordered Tekka Maki (raw tuna roll) and Miso soup while my friends tried The Crazy Monkey Roll (avocado and shrimp tempura wrapped in banana topped with spicy mustard), the Hidden Dragon Roll (avocado and breaded shrimp wrapped in cream cheese and breaded deep-fried wit nishiki sauce) and the Yin & Yang Roll (cucumber, kaki-age, and cream cheese wrapped in bbq eel and yellowtail with unagi sauce).

Eating/drinking miso soup, the authentic way ya' know! (With lots of slurping!)

My tuna rolls, yum. And of course I stole everyone else's pickled ginger.

Crazy Monkey Rolls. Bananas, mustard, rice, and shrimp make a better combo than expected.

The Dragon Roll! (Note the juxtaposition of the Minnesotan thumbs up with the global/urban-ness of sushi).

The eel definitely looked pretty sketchy once it arrived at the table. However, once you got over the strange mushy texture of it in your mouth, it tasted delicious.

I ended up eating pretty much half of everyone's rolls (I guess it's very filling for some people... but it only makes me more hungry!)

Overall, the meal was very pleasant, and I think it was a good starter course in sushi for my friends who'd never had it before.

Of course, we stayed close to our hometown roots with desert at Coldstone (a Like it cheesecake+cake batter with Heath for me, please!)