James had told me about some amazing sushi in Tustin that’s served traditional omakase style at the sushi bar, meaning you don’t pick items off a menu, the sushi chef just starts serving you all the different fresh fish of the day until you tell him to stop. Altho I was forewarned that this meal would be expensive, I was eager to try out the restaurant.

Last Friday evening, Mr. W and I met up with James and Vanessa at Sushi Wasabi for this delectation. James was right; all four of us enjoyed every single cut of fish. When the chef puts the hand roll, sushi or sashimi on your plate (each fish/oyster/scallop/crab is served slightly differently depending on the best way to showcase each flavor), he’d tell you what it is and where it’s from. “This is salmon from Austria,” or “This is blue crab from Alaska,” or “This is oyster from Seattle.” I’m not quoting him as I can’t remember where anything’s from, but it went a little something like that. I felt like I was taking a seafood tour of the world from my seat! The experience was also unique in that altho I’ve had yellowtail, ahi, oysters, etc before, they never tasted like this. Each savory bite melted in my mouth and had a fresh, refeshing and almost sweet aftertaste.

In the midst of the funny and entertaining conversation we were having together, James happened to mention that the last time he was there with 2 male coworkers, it was a no-holds-barred type of meal celebrating his promotion, so they’d gone through the entire fish menu twice plus some change, and polished off more than one liter-sized bottle of sake, and the total bill came out to over $700. Mr. W balked. I’d already expected our meal to be expensive because I was forewarned a few times by James, but I think Mr. W didn’t expect it to be that expensive since he kept saying that the restaurant is located in a ghetto Mexican area where there wouldn’t be a lot of sushi connoisseurs in attendance. Our total came out to be over $330 including tax and tip. Vanessa plunked down her card, and I wrote her a check for my and Mr. W’s half of the price (I’d never reimbursed a friend for a meal with a check before, but I don’t have that much cash onhand). James of course paid her in cash, the wealthy guy. But even he was $2 short. Haha.

I think it was worth the experience to try this amazing place out once, as it has totally blown all my past sushi experiences out of the water. But Mr. W lamented the entire weekend about how altho it truly was the best sushi he’d ever had in his life, no food is worth that price tag. (He’s sick at home today with food poisoning he got from some other food Sunday afternoon [my poor little boy], NOT from the Friday nite sushi, and Vanessa speculated maybe it’s a karma thing from all the complaining he did about the sushi all weekend. Food has feelings, too! At least it may have before we chopped it up and ate it over rice. Yum.)

Also worthy of note is that James remembered to bring his happy Magic 8 Ball (see comments on that post), which turns out is actually a Magic 8 Ball that’s yellow with a big smiley face on it, a promotional item from some company’s recruiting.