"...Which One Shall I Order First? I Just Can’t Choose. Kappa, Anakyu, Tekka. Sayori, Kazunoko. Ooo..."

Ever since 2:00 yesterday afternoon I've had this power pop punchbowl by Japanese duo Shonen Knife stuck in my head:

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"Sushi, sushi, sushi bar!
Going to a sushi bar!
Sushi, sushi, sushi bar!
Going to a sushi bar!
Sushi, sushi, sushi bar!
Going to a sushi bar!
Sushi, sushi, sushi bar!
Going to a sushi bar!

I wanna go to a sushi bar.
I wanna go with you.
Hamachi, Ika, Ebi, Tako.
Maguro, Kaibashira..."

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(giggles) That's because late afternoon yesterday I ambled on over to the Lloyd Center area sushi-go-round Marinepolis Sushi Land, located at 1409 NE Weidler Street to satisfy my proclivity for some nigiri! Indubitably, I took a lil' saunter with my family six blocks down lush, canopied Tillamook Street and saw all the grandmother trees lining the sidewalks, not to mention got a weekly peep of Peace Plaza and the chickens and roosters our 18th Street neighbors have mooching around their lil' back forty, up until we got to 15th Street, where we walked down across Broadway over to Weidler and, yare yare, Sushi Land awaits! :)



Marinepolis Sushi Land is a kaiten-zushi (or conveyor belt sushi restaurant) where the plates filled with all kinds of different sushi are placed on a rotating conveyor belt that winds all across the restaurant, cruising past every table and counter seat, sometimes even in the form of wooden sushi boats rowing down colorful canals. It’s like the automat meets The Outer Limits, everyone! J The plates at Marinepolis are also cooler-coded to indicate the price, with green worth $1.00 (jncluding cucumber rolls smoked salmon rolls and smelt roes), orange worth $1.50 (including shrimp tempura rolls, soy bean salads and yellowtail), blue worth $2.00 (including spicy tunas, albacore toros and salmon roe), and, if you’re a frog in the well that has a zazzle for knowing the ocean, purple plates are worth $3.00 (jncluding spider rolls, sea urchins and blue fin tuna toros). Specials are also available that can be specifically requested to the chef, all at their own various prices as well. By the end of your meal, the final bill is calculated based on the number and color of plates of the consumed sushi. And the best part of all is, you're treated with all the wasabi and picked ginger you can handle, with each table treated with communal containers loaded with the essentials, as well as soy sauce and teriyaki sauce.

To seek the origin of this harmonious haragei, look no further than Yoshiaki Shiraishi, the inventor of conveyor-belt sushi. You see, as you can expect from the typical small sushi bar manager's lament, it became difficult for him staffing his restaurant and even managing the restaurant single-handedly. So, as legend has it, he got the idea of conveyor-belt sushi after observing the brilliant quietude of a beer bottle meandering all around an Asahi brewery on a conveyor belt. And.....Mitsuketa, after five years of development on the conveyor belt and speed operations, Shiraishi opened the first conveyor belt sushi Mawaru Genroku Sushi in Osaka in 1958, where he went on to help create 240 eventually.



In the beginning, customers were seated in front of the conveyor belt, but ooohhhhh that was unpopular somehow. Sooooooooo, eventually tables were designed at right angels to the conveyor belt, which could seat as many as six each, to make it both more comfortable for each of the sushi senseis and reduce the length and costs of constructing the Union Tsubugai Railroad! (giggles) Apparently Shiraishi also experimented with sushi served by servant robots, but that didn’t go too kindly either, LOL! Also, some conveyor belt sushi restaurants have introduced this new touch screen monitor system, where the screen shows a virtual aquarium with all kinds of different fishes, and by touching a fish, you automatically order the sushi, and brought right your way via the Kitsune Express, which apparently is a very sustainable system in that it dramatically reduces the percentage of excess sushi not eaten!



So, there you have it, and indeed I was a spread eagle octopus stationed beside the conveyor belt, stoicly swaying like a willow in the wind awaiting the two halves of the cucumber, dressed in cheongsams of seaweed, rice vinegar and sesame, for my dining desire, gone in 8 centimeters per second! I ended up consuming three green plates of cucumber roll, one orange plate of veggie roll, and one orange plate of soy bean salad. Immediately after my meal I realized, “Hey, whenever I have a dollar and fifty cents lying in my pocket having a blanket drill, rather than spending it on a Charleston Chew or a twenty ounce can of Diet Black Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, I could combat my orthorexia the healthy way by just double-dutchin’ on over to Marinepolis, order a green plate of fried bean curd, and show a gesture of goodwill by offering a 50% gratuity with my remaining fifty cents. :)



Hey, did you know Marinepolis also has a Plate Championship? Nope, that certainly is not the pickle radish talking, for you can become the next Rocky Shorey (the current grand champion who devoured 56 plates within ninety minutes), ask the manager, "Hey, can I be a plate champion?", then be prepared to consume at least 30 plates of sushi by yourself within an hour and a half. Finally, when you're finished, you can call the server to come on over, count the plates, get your name and address, and take a snapshot of you, where you will be inducted into the illustrious on-line plate champion record repository, handed the all-exclusive "Marinepolis Sushi Land PLate Champion T-Shirt", and have multiple chances to win all kinds of gift certificates. Whether I have the audacity to do it remains uncertain, but what I do know is I will always be far more certain to ever do this than to do a poor Marshmallow Peeps smack-lipped massacre! ;)

Uso! Dôzo, hitokire dôzo! But before you gear up those chopsticks, remember these four rules of sushi etiquette, my child:



1) If you see something you like, trust your instincts and make your move, for it may not come around again. Each piece is an imperial opportunity of a feast.

2) If you love a taste of danger and want to go full throttle for fugu sashimi, or perhaps you love going neurotic exotic and have a taste for the Bakudan Mali roll (something like crisp sweet shrimp with grilled pineapple, baby arugula topped with avocado, curried coconut and a fried yucca ragout) but can't find it on the conveyor, don't be shy, ask for it, for special requests can always be concocted!

3) Take a deep breath, relax, and pace yourself before leaping in head-first for the treats. This way you can analyze the items by low, medium, high and habanero high rotation, and pull right off the belt with 100% accuracy what tickles your fancy.

4) Give the sushi cook a tip, they deserve it. At least 10 to 15% would do quite nicely! :)



Subarashii!

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"Which one shall I order first?
I just can't choose.
Kappa, Anakyu, Tekka. Sayori, Kazunoko.
Ooo, let's eat a healthy menu.
It's a famous Japanese meal.
Ooo, let's drink hot green tea
after a Japanese meal."

*



Anyway, today we also happen to be kicking off a whole new month. That's right, April gave us showers, and now we get to witness the marveling of May flowers. It's no mistake to me why May is said to be named after the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the Roman goddess of fertility, named Bona Dea. May is arguably my absolute favorite month of the year, the time of the year when Japanese children are stricken by the infectious May sickness and long to escape to their onsen ryokans and permeate the Pachinko parlors. Where the Finnish sow and sow and sow the lush days away in the high grasses with the bumblebees and the lily of the valley. And hey, you can't go wrong when every single Star Wars film ever made has so happened to have been released this mellifluous month! :)



May 1st also happens to be Mother Goose Day. :) Mother Goose Day was founded in 1987 by Gloria T. Delamar while publishing her book titled, "Mother Goose; From Nursery to Literature". The day's purpose is to re-celebrate all our favorite nursery rhymes, and, "either alone or in sharing, read childhood nursery favorites and feel the warmth of Mother Goose's embrace." Mother Goose Day is now listed in many calendars of events and celebrated from sea to shining sea, especially energizing kindergartens, libraries, and nursing homes.



So bring along your Mother Goose Rhyme books, gather with your friends, act out skits of different rhymes with them in the forms of pantomines and charades, light up a cozy lil' campfire and host a Mother Goose Sing-A-Thon, brew some wholesome Pease Porridge fondue, and go with the flow and improvise your own rhymes with the rhythm and patter banter. :) I'll start:

"A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly."



Zum gali gali gali gali! I dickery dickery dare ya! :)

XOXO,
Noah Eaton
(Mistletoe Angel)
(Emmanuel Endorphin)