maru

i have been hearing lots of good things about maru and finally got the chance to go last night!  we thought we were going for happy hour but it turned out they didn't really have a happy hour but i was fine with shelling out cash money for delicious drinks and awesome sushi.

my one disappointment was that they did not have a chirashi on the menu but i bet if i would have asked for it they could have made it for me.  they did have a bacon roll that all of my friends were freaking out over and although i am not normally a huge fan of creative meats in sushi i felt that i needed to make an exception for bacon.

the rolls were really good and i would like to go back to try their sushi in a less adorned format because the quality of the fish was great.  i was also pleased with the fact that they embrace bourbon cocktails whereas pretty much every place around here is like "omg yes we have a list of 85 tinis but that is it" for cocktail menus.  but i know you guys are sick of hearing me bitch about that so i will shut up.

i liked the layout and the ambience.  there is at least one other location that i know of so i am talking about the one on lake lansing road.  really high ceilings, lots of light, simple concrete and wood design.  one thing i didn't think was great was service.  i went a looooong time without water which i hate and also, when the waitress took my empty old fashioned glass, she did not ask me if i wanted another one.

i was on the fence and would have said yes to another one of their overpriced cocktails if asked, but wasn't going to actively hunt her down to order one.  i always think it is weird when servers don't offer another drink because i am so often in that on the fence, easily persuaded mode, and they could make a lot more cash money off me with very little effort.

ok i smell bacon right now, or i think i smell bacon, maybe i am just making it up in my head, so i have to go raid my fridge for my leftover sexy bacon roll that is going to be all dried up by now but i am going to eat anyway.

where to go in cincinnati if you want sashimi

living in new york, home of the $12 chirashi, pretty much puts you (or me at least) off of sushi rolls for good.  i will still get them if i am at like dancing wasabi or whatever place that sells half off rolls all the time or with other people who want to share rolls.  i can eat rolls and enjoy them.  but true sushi bliss for me can only be found in straight up pieces of fresh, buttery, tender raw fish.  here are my favorite to least favorite places to go for sashimi (or chirashi if you luck out and they have it).  this is by no means an exhaustive list, i am sure there are other good sashimi options out there.  my rankings are based on the following factors: freshness + selection + good value.

1. ruthai.  this is your absolute best bet for a generous portion of fresh, varied fish.  the sashimi special is $21 and you get way more than the 12 pieces that they say you are going to get, and there is mackerel (my favorite) and tuna and white tuna and salmon and shrimp and snapper and yellowtail and octopus and the pieces are big.  plus this place is byob.  you can't lose.
2. mr. sushi.  surprisingly high quality (i don't know why i'm surprised, i guess i just figured that anything located directly next door to "bartini" was going to give me food poisoning to go with my alcohol poisoning) and the chirashi is a great deal at $17.  you can also get a sashimi platter for i think $20 but whenever i can go for chirashi i do.
3. mei.  this might be higher up in the list if it wasn't so far and if i had been there recently.  chirashi is $21 and excellent.  they just have great sushi and great everything else japanese and a great atmosphere.
4. ko sho.  i used to fear ko sho when it was in the dilapidated, deserted location downtown (how could that scary place possibly be able to store and prepare decent raw fish?) but now that they are in northside i like it.  the sushi is all really fresh and they give you a great selection, it's just a little pricy.  i think the chirashi is $23 and the sashimi platter is $27.  they do have an excellent selection of other delicious japanese treats too so if you are looking for more than just sushi this is a good choice.
5. green papaya.  this is just ok.  there is no chirashi and the sashimi deluxe is $23, and one of your 12 pieces of fish is a fucking crab stick (seriously???) and the rest is just tuna, salmon, shrimp, and yellowtail... yawn.
6. painted fish.  i have been there twice and see no reason to ever go back.  there are white people making your sushi which scares me right there, sorry to be racist about it but they are proving my stereotype right.  service is slow and one time i was there, all of the sushi (rolls) we got were made with undercooked rice.  it was impossible to enjoy.  the other time i got the chirashi and it took two hours to get it so i don't even remember if it was good or not because i was delusional from hunger.  also i feel like it was expensive but was too lightheaded to be able to remember any prices.

totally unacceptably omitted from this list: ando.  i feel certain that they have amazingly delicious sashimi but i have actually never gotten sushi there any time i have gone... i always go for one of the traditional japanese dinners and last time i was there i got the shabu shabu.  this is just wrong and i strongly urge you to try the sushi if you are there because i am sure based on the freshness of everything else i have had there, and how authentic their menu is, and how good the sushi on other people's plates looks that it is delicious.

yes i have seriously never been to: jo an.  i know.  i know.  i need to go.  but it's far.  someone please take me there.  and buy my dinner.  no stalkers need apply.  thanks.

westside adventure

i love my roommate. i know i gush about him all the time but he really is the best. as tempting as it is however i am not allowed to pimp him out over this blog. sorry boys.

anyway, so yesterday i was feeling super crabby and cabin fevery because i have been sick with this weird virus that gave me fevers and "temporary arthritis" of the knees. temporary arthritis. i have never heard of this before but apparently it is something you can get with viruses. yes, i am officially a grandma. so i was really ornery because i had been sitting around the house for days watching way too much shitty tv and i was starting to lose my ability to socially interact in a normal way.

brian saw only one solution to this problem... let me loose on the westside. he grew up in... western hills? cheviot? i don't really know. somewhere far. so into the car we went to check out the one (that we know of) japanese restaurant on the westside, sakura.

on the drive i started dreaming about ramen and tempura and bento boxes. brian had never heard of a bento box before so i got him all fired up about it. well then we pull into the parking lot and i realized that maybe my dream was going to remain a dream. "are you sure we're in the right place?" i asked. "yes," said brian. "i told you it was in a hotel."

yes, this is what it really looked like

brian had told me that he used to work at sakura when it was another restaurant back in high school and he was excited to see how it looked now. well it turns out nothing had changed since 2000, or since 1978 for that matter.

damn, i forgot my quaaludes

"we can go somewhere else if you want," said brian. "no," i said, "it's cool. we're here now. let's see what this is all about." i snapped photos of people in cowboy hats while we waited for a table.

brian comes face to face with what could have been his destiny

when we sat down and looked at the menu i got confused. "where are the bento boxes?" i wondered. then it dawned on me. there were no bento boxes. this was some benihana spinoff. we asked for a sushi menu and after giving us a crazy look and announcing that she had a "pen fetish," our waitress wandered off, never to return.

this is the actual menu. those are the actual prices. also, is it just me or is this the first time chateaubriand has appeared on a menu since 1978?

another waitress, who was actually japanese, brought us sushi menus. i had gotten all fired up about drinking mai tais and living it up 70s style but after facing some definitively non-70s prices, we ended up just sticking to water. long wait times were not a problem however because there was lots of great people watching to be had.

dude: so do you know why these people are so skinny?

girl: no, why?

dude: because they eat rice with those sticks and they can only pick it up a little bit at a time and they get tired so they never eat that much.

girl: ohhh.

we did finally get our sushi and it was ok. i give them points for presentation because it did look pretty cool. however the quality of the fish was mediocre... it's not that it had gone bad, it was just flavorless. and almost every sushi option involved a generous dousing of mayo, or something cooked, neither of which are my preferred sushi roll preparations.

pretty...

...but not that good

finally we got our bill and got the hell out of there. we paid $50 including tax and tip which i thought was a lot. i know i am probably preaching to the choir here, but for god's sake do not drive a half hour into the west side to try to get good sushi. for the people watching however, it is definitely worth it.

people watching aside, i needed some kind of gustatory redemption so i asked for my westside guide to take me to one of those west side whippy dip places i keep hearing about. brian knew just the place... zip dip. he made me branch out from my usual boring twist cone so i got a butterscotch sundae and it was delicious.

confucius say... when on the westside, eat as the westsiders eat

i want blue!!!

i want some creamy whip in my mouth!!!

every time i go to the west side i feel like i am in some crazy bizarro sequel to napoleon dynamite where everyone is kind of living in a different time, and yet there is still internet and energy drinks and cell phones. i love it though and a trip to the west side is always the perfect distraction from whatever normal everyday problems i might be having. thanks brian!

blue elephant

cousin brian* and i went paint color shopping for our new apartment and we decided that we needed sustenance after exhausting all our energy on trying to choose between wheatgrass, kiwi splash, and little sprout. but we did not know where we wanted to eat.

cousin brian: what about that new place in hyde park?

liz: what new place?

cousin brian: elephant.

liz: what?

cousin brian: i have no idea. i think it's thai and italian.

liz: what???

pad khee mao

i was skeptical but i am always up for trying a new place so we went. it turns out it is actually called blue elephant and it is located in a new building next to r.p. mcmurphy's on wasson. i have no idea when the place opened but it couldn't have been that long ago and it was jam packed.

the ambience is pretty nice, lots of reds and wheatgrasses which gave us inspiration for decorating our new place. service was average. we had to wait forever to get our order taken, but the food came quickly once we did. our waitress kind of harassed us about how little we ordered (we both got $10.95 noodle dishes so she might have been trying to boost her tip) but when we kept saying no she was friendly about it.

pad thai

the food was good but nothing outstanding. i had the pad khee mao with beef and brian got the pad thai with chicken. we both ordered a 3 (the spiciest you could get) and it was hot but not too hot. i could have done a little hotter but i was satisfied.

i did think the portions were a little small, but the vegetables were fresh, the meats were tender and juicy, and the noodles were chewy and properly cooked. mine had lots of yummy thai basil and cousin brian's was sweet and smoky. the food was flavorful and i had no complaints, it just wasn't memorable at all.

the color scheme

we did not try the italian food. when i was in thailand i ate at italian restaurants a couple of times and it was the worst italian food of my life. to be fair, i will add that the thai restaurant i ate at in italy was the worst thai food of my life.

blue elephant is a solid if unremarkable addition to the ever expanding selection of hyde park/oakley thai restaurants. i'm not complaining but it would be nice to mix it up with maybe some vietnamese or malaysian or something like that. or else, you know... some thaitalian.

*note: cousin brian is not actually my cousin

dancing wasabi is now 1/2 off every night

i just wanted to let you guys know that right now dancing wasabi in mt. lookout is offering their 1/2 off sushi special (normally available wed and thurs from 5 pm-close and fri and sat nights from 10 pm-2 am) every night mon-sat. how long will this deal last? beth and i went last week and they told her it was going to be for "at least a month" and "probably until we shut down ichiban." so get your cheap sushi while it lasts!

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)

izen

alert, dedicated readers! next week is super awesome meal week here at GIMB. i have two very exciting dinners lined up and i can't wait to tell you all about them (assuming they are as good as i am pretty sure they will be). and what better way to lead up to a week of amazing dining than by writing about a really shitty meal?

avani is going to kill me because we stopped into izen randomly ("hey look, it's a new restaurant!") for a quick early dinner today and i didn't have my camera so i made her stomp around in the snow with her iphone to get me the perfect picture of the exterior of the restaurant... and now i am posting this without her photos. (note: avani sent me the photos so i felt guilty and added them later.)

here is my reason (avani will forgive me): izen is so bad that i do not want you to see the semi-appetizing pictures of the front window and the food and think to yourself, "oh, those pictures look nice. it can't be that bad. i'll give it a shot." do not give it a shot. please, i beg you. spend your money somewhere else.

it looks appetizing...

i really wanted to like izen. it's a cute little takeout sushi place that has popped up in what seems to be a little cluster of them on mcmillan just south of UC. it's brightly colored and serves sushi, korean food, and... frozen yogurt. ok, i know, that should have been my first warning sign.

my second warning sign should have been that the sushi is premade. the guy behind the counter, who was very nice and friendly and answered all my questions, told us that it is made 3 times a day, i guess in answer to the skeptical look on my face. i inspected the sushi. it looked weird. it was shaped funny and had strange colors in it. it looked about as good as the sushi i made for the first time a few months ago (which did not look very good).

warning sign #3: the sushi selection included a "steak and cheese roll." ok. i am sorry. not to be a sushi nazi, but STEAK AND CHEESE?!?! look. i am all for culinary creativity. i do not turn my nose up at fusion food. furthermore, i am not a food snob. i can equally appreciate a really good steak and a french fry dipped in a frostee. but god or nature or the flying spaghetti monster or whatever just did not intend for humans to eat certain things, and a steak and cheese sushi roll is one of them. the menu calls it "the best of both worlds." i don't know which worlds those are but it's definitely not any world i have been to. (note: i did not actually eat the sushi so for all i know it was really good... take my criticism with a grain of salt.)

the premade sushi selection

after being thoroughly frightened by the sushi selection, avani and i decided to go with a hot option. there were three choices: bibimbap, beef gyu don, and "cheese fried rice." can we say warning sign #4. oh wait, i forgot a hidden corner of the menu: omurice. sounds intriguing? maybe, until you realize that your flavor options for this cryptic dish include "cheese burger" and "italian sausage." yes readers, that would be warning sign #5.

by this point, we should have run screaming, but the guy behind the counter was really nice and appeared to be the owner and living the american dream of opening up his own restaurant after graduating from UC with his degree in violin performance. and he was actually korean, so i thought maybe he would be good at making korean food. while we were in the middle of ordering (me: gyu don, avani: bibimbap), a drunkish sororityish girl who had been sitting at a table by the window came stumbling up to the counter, cut in front of us, and began moaning something unintelligible about needing some frozen yogurt.

i don't know what college kids are on these days but i think you would have to be under the influence of some combination of controlled substances to order more food in this place after you had already eaten a meal there. and in case you're still counting, that was warning sign #6.

(aside: i know i seem to really be relishing this, but the truth is that i hate writing bad things about restaurants. sometimes i am lucky and the places just die a natural death before i have to talk trash about them on this blog, ahem seny ahem. but really i do feel bad writing this. not bad enough to stop though. i consider it a public service.)

after a few minutes of wandering the oddly sparsely furnished restaurant (there were like 3 tables and very few chairs, and lots of empty space), our food was ready. we noticed that there was this weird combination of styrofoam containers and actual plates and silverware. we also noticed that the portions seemed tiny.

gyu don

we sipped the miso soup, which comes with all the hot items. i was hungry. "well it's ok," i said. "are you kidding me?" said avani. "it tastes like nothing. it just isn't miso-y. it tastes like hot water." of course, she was right. we switched to our food. my gyu don was... odd. the flavor was pretty good but it was big hunks of beef, not shredded. also, it was really oily and the rice was drowning in sauce.

avani's bibimbap was just straight up bland. the beef tasted like nothing. the vegetables tasted like nothing. even the sauce could do little to revive the meal. on top of that, she ate like 3 bites and then was left with nothing but rice. i was eating as fast as i could to try to get through my meal before she started scavenging. but then i got to this huge chunk of fat and gristle and i let her have the rest of mine.

bibimbap

here is the worst part: we paid $20.13 total for this meal. and we did not even order drinks. just some rice, a little watered down miso soup, and a few crappy bites of bland food. we could have eaten like kings at cilantro (or king wok, or thai express, or chicago gyro, or chipotle...) for half that.

"i can't wait to go home and eat some leftover pizza," said avani. i was mad because i wasn't going home just then and had to wait until 10 pm to eat again.

"here is what we have learned from this meal," i said as we left. "never try anything new."

dancing wasabi update

i already did a longer review of dancing wasabi about a year and a half ago, so i'm not going to go into too much detail. but i stopped there last week for dinner with lauren and it was damn tasty. we went for the half price sushi that they offer: all day wednesday, all day thursday, and from 10 pm - 2 am on friday and saturday nights.

the sushi was great and the service was fine given how busy they were, but beware... the wait times can be horrible. we were lucky since there were only two of us and got a table in about 25 minutes, but there were many large groups which were told they were going to have an hour or so to wait. plus every inch of the place was jam packed with people staring at you like a hawk while you ate. i am not kidding, there were people jammed right up against our table.

our fishtastic spread

all this would not even have been that bad (after all, it's half price sushi) except for the fact that we were there on The Coldest Day In Recorded History and people kept walking in, holding the door open while they debated whether to wait, left, came back in, went out, checked back in on the wait, held the door while they yelled to their friends on the street, etc. it was cold as FUCK. i mean, it made the meal kind of miserable. which sucks since we were having cheap delicious sushi.

all they need to do is just get one of those little temporary vestibule things that every other city in the united states besides cincinnati has discovered (read about the vestibule here... i could not find any pictures after searching on google images for like 10 minutes) and they would be all set. with so much traffic in and out on a cold winter night, the tiny restaurant was freezing. but maybe they don't care since the place was jam packed anyway.

teak thai cuisine

i know i wrote about teak not that long ago, but i wrote about eating sushi outside that time. so this time i'm going to write about eating thai food inside. so it's different... i guess...

book club was meeting up for dinner at teak so liberal foodie and i decided to meet early for drinks and to catch up. we sat at a table in the bar area where we enjoyed $2.50 kirin ichibans (happy hour is from 5-7... you get $2.50 drafts and well drinks and half off appetizers in the bar area only).

los shu mai

we also enjoyed listening to a bunch of middle aged white dudes sitting at the bar bitch about obama. it was hilarious. overheard: "i hope he really fucks up in his first year. i mean we are already in a trillion dollars of debt. so let's spend more! fucking liberals. fucking big government. if it gets any worse, i'm moving to canada." yes, my friend, if you hate liberals and big government, then canada is definitely the place for you. readers, i could not make this shit up if i tried.

el crispy duck

our group of seven got seated right away at 6:30 when we had made our reservation and our server was great. super friendly, patient, and did not mind at all that we were indecisive or slow. we started off with pork shu mai that beth f. treated us to as a celebration of her new job as the director of development at artworks. yay beth, yay artworks, and yay shu mai!

el pad thai

liberal foodie and avani also ordered a sushi roll, i forget what, which they thoroughly enjoyed if their devouring of it within five seconds of its arrival on the table is any indication. "how is the roll, you guys?" i asked. "mmmmmffff mmmmfff," they chomped.

el seafood delight

soon enough the main dishes started rolling in. of course we could not decide on just one thing so several of us decided to share. teak's thai food is just good. it's flavorful, all the veggies and meats are fresh, and they are not afraid to spice it up. if you order it a 10, you get a 10. i love that since i get really sick of restaurants that take one look at me and decide for me that i can't handle spicy. jerks!

el green curry

the atmosphere is casual and slightly dated, but also thai-ish feeling. it's funny. emma was like "this place is so funny, it's like all family friendly. i just wouldn't expect this in mt. adams." this was a compliment since she had brought henry with her and she felt totally comfortable nursing him at the table. it was true. there were little kids everywhere. however, there is enough space in the restaurant that you don't feel like the kid yelling and throwing pad thai across the room is going to interfere with your meal.

los spicy fried noodles

the one thing that kind of sucks about teak is the parking. they have one tiny lot (like maybe 6-8 spots) across the street from the restaurant, but otherwise you are stuck hunting for a spot in the wilds of mt. adams. that isn't fun for anyone but what can you do.

overall, teak is a basic and reliably delicious thai option with good service and reasonable prices (all entrees pictured were $11-16). they have a wait sometimes, but not (it seems) during the week. and they take reservations and can accommodate big, indecisive groups. there is nothing especially innovative or exciting on the menu... you'll find everything here at every other thai place in town. but teak knows what it is and doesn't try to do anything it's not, and it does a pretty damn good job of it.

beluga

liberal foodie had the brilliant idea of gathering up our friends tonight for half off sushi night at beluga. being the anal planner that i am (and trust me readers, social events are pretty much the only thing i am meticulous about... i don't think i even know how to balance a checkbook), i started having heart palpitations over the fact that we did not have a reservation so i made one for us. good thing i did since the restaurant had exactly two tables taken when we got there...

can i just say right now that i love beluga. i can't believe i have never been there. first of all, the atmosphere is so fun. there are a bunch of little different rooms and i love how they are decorated. it is a really fun and interesting place, and it feels classy without being overdone. here are some photos of the interior of the restaurant:

the front room is a restaurant until the late hours, when it turns more into an extension of the bar

the front half of the sushi bar

the ceiling above the bar

half price sushi is a great deal. you can't get every roll on their menu (for example, none of the rolls involving lobster are available for half price) but you have a damn good selection. half price sushi is available at beluga every wednesday from 5 pm - 2 am, and every friday and sat night from 11 pm - 2 am. while the prices are kind of high normally (at least for me who is cheap, not necessarily for sushi in general) at approx $8-$18 for rolls, half price makes it totally doable. we had 6 people for dinner and we all had drinks and the total bill including tip was $200.

las chicas

the service was absolutely awesome. possibly the best service overall that i have experienced in cincinnati. i stayed for a long dinner, and then hung out for drinks at the bar. i talked to bus boys, the hostess, a waiter, two bartenders, and several kitchen staff and everyone was totally friendly, welcoming, and helpful. lucas the bartender kept stopping by to chat. the hostess hung our coats and offered to take pictures of us. the kitchen staff let us peek in and gave us the secret to their creme brulee (green tea).

mas chicas

good service can go such a long way with me in terms of my overall enjoyment of a restaurant and i really found beluga's to be flawless. everyone seemed to enjoy their job and to love their customers which is awesome. i can't say the same for other places in hyde park (ahem red ahem) and actually i maybe hadn't made a point to go to beluga until now because i was worried about snobbiness. beluga's entire staff was totally friendly and completely lacking pretentiousness. i love that.

henry joined us and opted for breast milk instead of sushi

on to the food. the sushi was good. it was not the best sushi i have ever had, or even the best sushi i have had in cincinnati. but it was very good. they have a large and interesting selection of rolls. i thought the salmon and yellowtail were really fresh and delicious. the tuna, shrimp, and crab were ok but not outstanding. the wine selection was extensive without being overwhelming and had something for every price range.

this is only about 2/3 of the sushi we ordered

after dinner, a few of us moved to the front bar and had more drinks and conversation. the mixed drinks were very tasty, and i especially recommend the fresh beluga (cucumber, lime, sake, and who knows what else). the bartenders were both really fun and even made up drinks for us which totally hit the spot.

artistic martini photo courtesy of liberal foodie

the one thing that wasn't so great about beluga was the parking. a couple people in our group had parked behind the restaurant, and emma got ticketed even though she was only five minutes late getting out to her car. there was a police officer watching the meters and ticketing people the minute their meter went over. that is bullshit.

however, i am sure beluga has no control over the parking situation since if they did, they would have been much nicer about it. i had an excellent night eating, drinking, and hanging out at beluga, and i totally recommend it. if you can hit it on half price night, it's even better.

CAM and sushi making

my exciting food project for the weekend was to learn to make sushi rolls. i had never made them before and it has been a goal of mine for a while. since i just got a rice cooker recently, and since i am hoping to make some for my book club's holiday party in a few weeks, it seemed like a good time to try.

before i made the sushi though i took a trip to cincinnati asian market (aka CAM) to pick up some supplies. if you have never been to CAM, you need to go. it is by far the best source of asian foods anywhere in cincinnati. much bigger and more selection than the place at findlay market and all the other small places around.

look no further for all your asian food needs

CAM is not just a store, it's a supermarket. they have aisles and aisles of everything you could possibly need for any type of asian cooking. i will show you some pictures so you can get an idea.

CAM offers a variety of brands of chinese sausage but kam yen jan is my favorite

yes, they have an entire aisle of soy sauce and rice vinegar

crazy big bags of rice

CAM is very vegetarian friendly. if i were a vegetarian i would shop here all the time. they have more kinds of gluten, bean curd, and fake meat than i ever knew existed

all that and an amazing tofu selection!

if you like fun drinks then CAM is the place for you. they have all kinds of yummy juices and coffees.

where else in cincinnati can you buy fresh quail eggs?

the sweets aisle. my favorites are pocky, fruit gummies, and ginger candy

CAM also offers a lot of other good stuff not pictured above. they have fresh roast pork and duck. they have all kinds of vegetables and fruits that you can't find anywhere else (chinese broccoli, longan, chayote, rambutan, daikon, etc.). they have a huge fresh fish selection. they also have a huge frozen fish selection. there is an entire aisle of frozen dumplings and buns and other yummy dim sum items. they have a wide variety of rice cookers, steamers, teapots, chopsticks, and other kitchen wares. they have an aisle dedicated solely to pickled vegetables.

after my jaunt to CAM, where i bought necessary sushi supplies (rice, nori, pickled ginger) as well as some completely unnecessary treats (kimchi, pocky, jasmine tea, canned mackerel belly in ginger sauce) i came home and started on the sushi. i was using a recipe that avani's friend had given her, and i was supplementing that with an ina garten recipe i had seen on tv a while ago.

this recipe has seen a lot of use

it may seem odd to use sushi recipes from an indian girl and a white woman from the hamptons, but i tried googling and got overwhelmed so i decided to just stick to what i kind of knew on my first try. so i gathered my supplies together and got started. i decided i would do veggie rolls with some combination of cucumber, carrot, and avocado, and fish rolls. i was too cheap to buy sushi grade fish, so i bought smoked salmon and cream cheese and did philadelphia rolls.

ready, set, sushi!

i ended up making about six rolls with mixed results. first of all, i don't think i was rolling some of them tightly enough. i guess that comes with practice. another problem i had was that my fillings were not staying in the middle. this caused a problem because i think the heat of the rice is what causes the nori to stick to itself. in the places where the cold veggies and fish touched the nori, it wouldn't stick to itself. i remedied that by putting a little hot water on the nori and then squeezing the roll for a while, but i don't think that is the ideal way to do it. my knives are perpetually too dull so that was kind of a problem when cutting.

also, fyi, the recipe above calls for way too much rice vinegar. i used 4 tablespoons for 2 cups of rice, and it was almost too much.

the finished product

my sushi turned out ok but not great. i am very pleased for my first try though. i nibbled on a few pieces that kind of fell apart while i was cutting them. however, at the end of the process, i no longer felt like eating sushi. that happens to me sometimes where i am really craving something kind of complicated, then i go through all the work of making it and then when it is done i don't want it anymore. it's annoying. does that ever happen to you guys?

at any rate after all that sushi making i decided in the end that i wanted mashed potatoes and made that. the sushi is all sitting in my fridge. hopefully i will feel like eating it tomorrow for lunch...