sake bomb

"westender" of clark street blog was kind (crazy?) enough to organize a blogger happy hour at sake bomb in east hyde park. the company was good and mostly food bloggers: k and b of westside foodie wannabes, laura and david of cincinnati nomerati, jeff of a dork and his pork, l and j of cincyspin, and the artist formerly (and currently) known as 5chw4r7z. rumor has it jen of tavern wench was also there but left before i arrived, and actually that is a new blog to me so i will have to check it out.

hmm... a blogger happy hour. sound nerdy? it was.

nerdy or not, it was also a fun time. i know many people think of bloggers (other than myself of course) as socially inept freaks with very little ability to interact successfully with other human beings in public. however, i have not found this to be true. i think people are mixing bloggers up with the chat room and message board crowd. my theory now that i have met a number of other bloggers is that if you have enough to say that you start up a blog about it, and if people actually want to come and read it, you are probably going to be pretty interesting in person.

anyway, enough of me trying to justify my nerdiness. on to the food. i actually did not get that much, i ordered only two rolls (a spicy tuna roll and a hot mama roll) and a miller lite. i'm on a budget and even with the 15% off that westender managed to get for our group by sleeping with, i mean befriending, the owner, prices still looked kind of high.

i thought the rolls were ok. they were very spicy. the table had warned me about that but i was thinking to myself "whatever, these internet nerds don't know spicy." well they were right. i actually thought the rolls were too spicy, but maybe that is because i also dumped a bunch of wasabi in my soy sauce. i pretty much never think anything is too spicy, so this is saying a lot.

the rice was good and the fish was of good quality, but i thought the rolls were kind of small for the price. also, i had been expecting something different from the hot mama roll. it was described as: "tuna, salmon, yellowtail, red snapper, garlic, special hot sauce" and it was priced at $7.95. i expected some large pieces of fish both inside and on top, and what they did was just blend up the fish together into a mush. there was not much of it and it was just on the inside of the roll. it was disappointing. the spicy tuna roll ($5.95) was ok but nothing special.

would you pay $20 for this?

at the end of our meal, the restaurant surprised us with a plate of desserts. again, just ok. the one thing i liked was the banana spring roll. the other things on the tray (deep fried cheesecake and brownies) were nothing special in my opinion and were way too heavy and sweet for me after sushi. the owner also came around and gave us a taste of some "dessert sake" that he is planning to add to the menu.

the atmosphere was ok, it felt kind of generic and strip mall-ish and the crowd was mostly rich hyde park (and internet nerds). the service was great, very friendly and helpful.

my bill for 2 smallish sushi rolls and a miller lite, after the 15% off, was $16.63. so normal price would have been like $20, before tip. this is just too much, unless you are serving me the best damn sushi of my life. i probably will not go back to sake bomb. had i not also had the free desserts, the free sake, the beer that westender treated me to, and the fun company of a bunch of internet nerds, i would have been pretty unsatisfied with this meal. and i doubt i am going to prance in there and get all this free shit again. unlike some people i am not willing to compromise my morals for some fish and rice. now a steak on the other hand...

(note: i forgot my camera so the photo is courtesy of 5chw4r7z)