Anyway, my former paralegal A called me yesterday needing some computer help. Now, to know me is to know that I am anything but a computer expert. However, in comparison to the majority of the baby boomer crowd, I'm a complete whiz. And thankfully, I absolutely, without a doubt knew the answer to her question: there IS a difference between Microsoft Word and Word Perfect. She also mentioned that she'd be the area today and asked if I wanted to grab lunch. After going to the post office to mail off some of the baked goods for S, I met up with her for lunch. We ended up back at Marie Callender's for an encore of salads. This time we got the regular-sized ones, which was much better for me. Supplemented with a granola bar and cottage cheese, it was a decent lunch. Plus our waitress brought us cornbread, which was soft, moist, and crumbly. Sooo good. Usually cornbread is too dry for my tastes, but this was some good stuff. Anyway, our waitress totally rocked, also because she told us how to make candied pecans--egg white, sugar, butter, and toasted in a skillet. And she said that TJ's balsamic vinaigrette was very similar to Marie Callender's.
Again, we had a really good lunch together. We just talked about life and had fun. Oh, and the cheese was definitely Gorgonzola today. But it was really mild and I actually liked it.
Later on, Jim and I met up with his cousin S and her hubby J for dinner in Sacramento. We went to a sushi place called Nishiki's, which is right off the freeway and smack dab in the middle of downtown. Once upon a time, I wanted to live in Sacramento. Part of me still does, but the one thing I hated more than anything in the world (besides the insane dry heat) was all of the one way streets. Horrible! Tonight was different, though, because we had the GPS to guide us.
We actually walked right by the restaurant and overshot it by a couple of blocks. The neon restaurant sign is green and yellow, with small, squiggly letters and the outline of a fish. Not exactly designed to catch one's eye. S & J had snagged us a choice corner booth away from the bars and noise, which was absolutely perfect. The restaurant is a decent size, with an alcohol bar in the front entry way and a sushi bar on the opposite side. Small booths run up and down the length of the restaurant with the typical wood/glass dividers between the rows. They do have a sizable outdoor patio strewn with Christmas lights that would be perfect dining in late spring. The inside decor was apparently nondescript, since I can't remember a thing about it, other than the fact that the tables were marble.
I wasn't expecting very good things from here, mostly because it's Sacramento. While Sac has tons of restaurants, some of them actually very good, overall it just can't hold up the the cuisine the Bay Area offers. I had checked out the menu online beforehand and while I was relieved that they did indeed offer several different types of vegetarian sushi, none of it was particularly creative or unusual. The rest of the menu was rather extensive and full of unique rolls, so I was a little concerned for Jim.
My fears proved to be completely unfounded. We were pleasantly surprised to discover a really good sushi restaurant. It's no Ray's, mind you, but it was quite decent and I would not hesitate to come back. I wouldn't make a trip out there just for Nishiki's, but I would for Mochii Yogurt (more on that later). Our waitress was super nice and helpful with the menu, and S & J both recommended different rolls to Jim. They just moved back from Arkansas a few months ago, but before the move, they had frequented the place quite often and it is their favorite sushi restaurant. With J's previous job, he took clients out to eat a lot, so he would take them to Nishiki's and bring S home a couple of rolls. Good deal for both of them.
Anyway, I ended up ordering a Heidi roll and a Futo Maki roll. Jim got a 16th Street Roll and a Spider Roll. I couldn't even begin to tell you what S & J ordered. It was a good thing we had a large rectangular table because when all of the platters came out, there was just enough room for all of our dishes. S & J's came out on one large tray, mine on two little ones, and Jim's on one medium one. Add in the water glasses, my hot tea and kettle, Jim and J's iced tea glasses, and the edamame bowl and it was a full house.
But I'm jumping ahead of myself here. Let me back up the the appetizer part. I wanted to try their vegetarian potstickers, and Jim was more than happy to oblige. They were good, but unremarkable except for the green coloring of the wrapper. It didn't taste any different, though. The ponzu sauce it came with made the dish, though. Slightly sweet, it was really, really good! The edamame wasn't salted at all, so it wasn't all that good. Plus it was a little undercooked. My green tea was delicious, but Jim's iced was instant. It was quite a surprise for us that he was served instant iced tea in an Asian restaurant. Weird. Everyone but me also got miso soup. I thought Jim would like it, but he didn't particularly care for it.
Our appetizers came out pretty quickly, and our sushi was brought to the table quite a while thereafter, but it was all brought out at once, which was rather impressive. I don't think the delay was unreasonably long, but there was a noticeable pause there.
Hands down, the Futo Maki was the best I've ever eaten. The egg had a completely different texture and consistency than I'm used to getting in sushi. It was more scrambled and tender instead of chewy and thick. That alone made a huge difference in the roll, but they also put inari in there, which was also very yummy. Then there was avocado and the other usual veggies. The roll wasn't wrapped quite tightly enough, so it was on the messy side to eat, and there was nowhere enough ginger for me, but all in all, it was delicious.
My Heidi roll was a stereotypical SoCal veggie roll, except it was topped with an extremely tiny smattering of seaweed salad. I'm used to the rolls being drowned in the stuff at Ray's, so it was a bit of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong--I loved this roll. It just wasn't anywhere near the Ray's standard of excellence. And since I just had Ray's three days ago, it's hard to measure up.
I don't know what all Jim got, but it was completely different from what I usually see him get. He said it was good, but we didn't really discuss it. At least it was pretty!
The only disappointment with Nishiki's was the bill. It was absolutely outrageous! Not only did they charge for the edamame ($8 for two bowls!!), the rolls were absurdly overpriced. My two rolls were $19 by themselves. $19!! Ray's would have charged me $13. And seeing as they're closer to the City, it's ridiculous for a Sacramento restaurant to be charging those kinds of prices. Jim's order was also around $20. Once we added in $6 for the appetizer and another $2 for Jim's drink, we ended up putting in $60 for the two of us. While that's nowhere near breaking the bank for our dining out, considering the amount of food, it wasn't a great deal.
That being said, the company made the price tag worth it. I had such a good time eating with S & J. The conversation flowed naturally without any awkward pauses. For as different as our lives are and as little as we know each other, the evening turned out better than I could have hoped for. I would love to go out to eat with them again and I actually do hope that we can make it a somewhat regular thing. Two memorable things: we basically killed off an entire bottle of soy sauce between the four of us, which is craziness. The other was the lasagna story. For their fourth anniversary, they were still in Arkansas and had been recommended an "authentic" Italian restaurant. J ordered the lasagna and couldn't figure out why it took 45 minutes to come out. Well, it turns out that the owner was spotted at 2 am in the local Wal-Mart the night before stocking up on frozen Stouffer's. And they brought out S's wine in a airplane-type bottle and gave her a water glass to pour it in. Finally, the owner lived above the restaurant and grandma rocked away in her rocker all night right above their table. Straight out of Psycho. Hilarious. Of course, it did nothing change my mind about Tennessee and the rest of the southern states.
Afterwards, Jim and I went to a place we walked past on our way to Nishiki's called Mochii Yogurt. I did a double take when I saw the place because I love, love, LOVE mochi ice cream. I first had it when I was living in Hawaii at a place called Bubbie's, and ever since then, I've been hooked. I've never managed to find a place as good as Bubbie's, so I have to satiate myself with the occasional taste at a sushi restaurant. So when I saw the sign, I freaked out. We walked into the place a little after 9 pm. There were only a couple other people in there, so the guy working the register gave us his complete undivided attention. We got samples of the three yogurts they had: Zang (plain yogurt that gets its tangy flavor from added Vitamin C, peach, and strawberry). The Zang was pretty good, and I was shocked that it has a calorie count of 20 per ounce. That's just insane. Oh, and it's all non-fat and all-natural. I truly don't know how they get the flavor without a ton of sugar, but it was really tasty. And then we tried the peach and strawberry flavors and it was game over. They were absolutely delicious. I was sold. And then we sampled the mochi, which actually is just the mochi itself. It doesn't have ice cream in it. The mochi is used as a topping on the yogurt instead. We each tried a piece of the pomegranate and after we popped the samples into our mouths, we just looked at each other in astonishment. It was kind of like a gummy bear consistency, except less softer and less chewy. But the flavor was so good! It wasn't too sweet; it was perfect. We ended up sharing an 8 oz. (their version of Cold Stone's Love It) with pomegranate and peach mochii and fresh strawberries (the only slight disappointment--not as fresh or sweet as I had expected).
The yogurt was really good and comparable in price to Cold Stone. We paid $4.67 for the bowl, which isn't a bargain, but it's not a bad deal. And the taste was so good. Plus, with only 160 (well, probably add another 80 for the toppings) calories for the whole thing, it was basically guilt-free indulging.
Afterwards, the fullness factor really kicked in after we got back to the car. I couldn't believe how full the stuff made me. Not sick full. Just satiated full. Stuffed, really.
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