sushi and grasshoppers and uni, oh my!

i like to think i'm fairly open-minded when it comes to eating. yeah, yeah, i've got that weird fruit aversion. shut up. but i'm generally okay with trying new things at least once.

and then we went to a little sushi place in san dimas, called little tokyo. i'd been reading the monkey's posts on the knot about ramen and mochi, and this wasn't quite the same, but at least it was the same ethnicity. anyway, the hub had been to this place with some dudes from the local cigar shop he likes to hang out at. and he's pretty picky about his sushi, so i knew it had to be yummy. and it's always a big plus when you walk into an ethnic restaurant and find folks from the same homeland grubbing down on the eats. right?

the menu at the sushi bar was fairly normal - your basic rolls, plus some items for appetizers like edamame, shumai, gyoza, teriyaki, tempura. fine. the hub ordered his usual - hamachi, bigeye tuna, seared albacore, and a few rolls. we threw in some beef teriyaki and wanted to give their shumai a try, but they were all out. damn. anyway, the teriyaki was really delicious - tender and just the right balance of sweet and savory. mmmm. i had a tiger roll, which is pretty much a crunchy roll, and a california roll. i guess i'm not really THAT adventurous after all.

and i'm kind of a sushi whiner (although only to the hub, never to the servers or sushi chefs) - if the roll is cut into ginormous pieces, i just can't handle it. i end up picking out some of the stuff and eating it first before i can eat the rest of it. besides, it's too hard to bite into a piece of cut roll - the seaweed doesn't break really easily, and the rest of it kind of falls apart and i end up looking like an asscheese who's a sushi newbie. so i stuffed a piece in my mouth and i couldn't even chew the damn thing, it was so big. [insert dirty joke here] and then i always feel like i'm gonna spew. but i managed to choke it down before my gag reflex kicked in. yay for me.

the dude at the end of the bar ordered some uni, and i wouldn't really have mentioned it except for the fact that when it was served i almost jumped out of my chair. god, i feel like the biggest wuss right now. but the chef put the plate on the bar in front of me, and when i looked up, this shit was right over my head:

and that mess was MOVING. good lord.

a few minutes later, i heard the dude's kid say something about grasshoppers. again, i didn't pay much attention until the chef came over with his hand outstretched, dude's kid put her plate out, and the chef dropped onto it a little pile of...stuff. the hub looked over, grinned knowingly, and said "did you see that? it's grasshoppers!"

i glanced at dude's kid, saw her pop a couple of those things in her mouth and start chewing, and i swear to you i almost ralphed right then and there. i'm not kidding, i was so grossed out i didn't want to eat anymore. and i'd been starving when we sat down.

the hub couldn't stop laughing at me. "i ate some when i came here. they're good - they cook them in some kind of sweet sauce. they served them at the restaurant in zimbabwe, too." i'm a bit surprised at the hub - remember, this is the dude who won't touch dim sum. or even consider the soup dumplings thing. but he ate grasshoppers??

oh, my good god. my gag reflex is kicking in again.