Today is my dad’s 83rd birthday – yay Dad! Last night Tim and I, along with my sister, went to visit my parents and took them to a Japanese restaurant for dinner, to a new place recently opened in their fairly small town.
I’m the only one in the family who eats sushi. Tim prefers sashimi – leave the rice out of it and bring on the raw fish, please. My sister likes tempura and veggie sushi, but no fish, thank you. Mom and Dad haven’t explored Japanese food much. So Dad told me to order for him and Mom.
What a feast! For appetizers, we had a veggie sushi roll and shrimp tempura, which were both delicious. Sis suggested getting a veggie roll to introduce M&D to the sushi concept without involving raw fish, and that worked well, both for her and for the parents. We showed them how to mix the soy and wasabi, and my dad even began to get the hang of chopsticks.
Our entrees came with miso soup, so M&D had a taste of seaweed and tofu – and enjoyed. Next came salad with that yummy ginger dressing, which wasn’t the best I’ve had but was fine, and they liked. Then we had our main course, four hibachi steak platters (with filet mignon) and one sashimi boat for Tim. Dessert was a refreshing sherbet mix.
The restaurant has devised a deep-fried tuna sushi roll, hoping to enlighten the palettes of eastern NC diners with some fried fish. They served us a complimentary roll, and it was delicious! A crunchy texture with some cream cheese, ala Philadelphia roll. Everyone loved that dish.
Dad told me to write down all of the new foods he tried so he can tell his coffee-club buds. But he was kidding – more or less, anyway. They’re not bumpkins, but they are, at this point in their lives, fairly “set in their ways.” (As I am, for that matter, lol.) But I’m happy that they’re still willing to experiment and broaden their culinary horizons. It’s never too late to try something new!




























