Wow, can you believe Labour Day has come and gone already? As I'm sure my faithful readers will recall, the original plan for Sushipalooza was to start on Victoria Day with the closest sushi restaurant to my house, then visit the next-closest place each week of the summer and see how far away from home I was on Labour Day. Well, with this week's visit to Asahi on Church, we can finally reveal the answer that we've technically known all along!
(*Cue fanfare*) Ladies and gentlemen, the final results of the Great Sushipalooza Experiment of 2009 are as follows: After 17 weeks of visiting progressively-further sushi restaurants, the maximum distance I have had to walk from my home is...
0.8 kilometres!
That's right, 17 sushi joints within a scant 800 metre walking distance... for you people who prefer wacky old-timey measurements, that's about half a mile, or like 160 rods or something.
Other facts not worth noting:
- The Summer of Sushipalooza began and ended with the only two places located on Church St (so far) -- Omi in Week 1 and Asahi in Week 17.
- Speaking of things Omi and Asahi uniquely have in common: they both share names with other nearby restaurants; there is another Omi and another Asahi on Carlton St (over 0.8 km away, so I never made it to either).
- There are still many other sushi restaurants within the bounds of what can reasonably be referred to as "my neighbourhood".
This last point troubles me. I really wanted an excuse to go to some of those places. And once I get into a nice little rut, I like to stay in it. So I am pleased to make the following big surprise announcement... (*cue fanfare again*) Sushipalooza '09 is going into overtime!
Yup, I'm just going to keep right on visiting local sushi restaurants (still in increasing order of distance, naturally), until I reach some yet-to-be-determined radius, or until I succumb to mercury poisoning, whichever comes first.
How long can I keep this up? How many sushi places can there possibly be within a reasonable walking distance? There's only one way to find out... onward to sushi!
Your site is charming! I, too, am passionate about sushi. Indeed, in addition to loving eating good sushi, it gives me great pleasure just looking at pictures of sushi. I think it's one of the most beautiful foods in the world. And when it's super-fresh and reveals the imagination and skill of a master sushi chef, you know you are in the presence of edible art. I hope you don't mind, I downloaded some of your pictures -- purely for my own use, to look at like a slide show, or for use as wallpaper on my home-based desktop. If I didn't know I was writing to another sushi freak, I'd feel uncomfortable about this comment, but I'm sure you understand. I see that you're in Toronto. I'm in New York (Manhattan). There are many Japanese restaurants in my neighborhood, too, but a surprising number of them are shockingly mediocre. Those are the places that remind me of Robin Williams' old comedy routine about eating in a sushi restaurant. He said it always makes him feel like he's being duped by the staff and management, that they're all giggling, huddled together in the back, and one of them says, "Look! He's eating the raw fish, and he's drinking the hot wine!" Hope you had a fun sushi summer and wish you a sublime sushi fall and comforting sushi winter. -- Jeanne Browne. P.S.: hope you'll stop by my blog, MizB Views From the Tower at http://mizbviewsfromthetower.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by, MizB, glad you enjoyed it! I think a true sushi connoisseur would describe most of the places in my neighbourhood as "shockingly mediocre" too... certainly the vast majority are strictly downmarket. Luckily for me, I am not a connoisseur, and what these places lack in red snapper sashimi they make up for in attractive and tasty novelty maki, which is right up my alley.
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