Sushi To Go
Sushi To Go
Dorobanti Square had been lacking sushi for some time. Perhaps few realized it, but the florists in the area were growing skinnier by the day and the car operators in front of the famous cafes were drooling abundantly, as if they were remembering the sushimic childhood, when the soy sauce, impeccably seasoned with the vegetable hotchpotch or the gizzard stew was caressing their palates. Well, their dream came true! "Sushi to go" had opened!
The place is of the size of the gossips surrounding the sex of the Japanese, meaning very small, but clean. There are three or four tables arranged in Indian file on the right, hurting the eye with their kitschy look, colored in light maroon "enameled" with shimmering silver flakes. The chairs resemble those of a well kept metro train, not the kind one would find in Bucharest; probably they were taken from the Tokyo-Osaka route. On the left side of the row of tables there are the refrigerated display cases, which, accompanied by the reassuring buzzing of the compressors, are productively cooling off some desserts in transparent plastic boxes, bottles of refreshments and some Japanese beer. One could argue the case of the cakes, as out of four types two have a Sicilian recipe and one is fresh pineapple, of which Dorobanti Square is practically full – one would have to be plain stupid and would still draw profit out of this!
Beer, on the other hand?is a Japanese amusement made in Europe. There’s nothing special about it; it’s a mediocre-to-bad beer, with a little less alcohol in it than our beer, having no specific feature except the price: 14 RON / 33cl.
The food is not badly prepared, but it’s nothing like its mother from the Far East. And it shouldn?t be, because the florists’ tastes do not match those of the geishas in Shimabara-Kyoto.
As such, the soy sauce also is made in Holland. And I found the explanation, too, as the largest flower producer in Europe is "The Land of the Tulips," isn’t it? And the florists…like all girls…some Holland, some sushi…to go…That’s ok, because that soy sauce is not half bad and it’s in any case much better than the Heinz sauce in supermarkets!
Let’s come back to the food, to the sushi, that is; I usually dash at things that look more exotic and have a price from the superior category, to make sure that I don?t judge the world according to low-cost products (an improper term for sushitogo, in fact), so I bought three pieces of sushi with eel (12 RON a piece) and two with sweet shrimps, which are some very small, very thin shrimps, having indeed a slightly sweet taste (12 RON a piece).
I thought of completing the meal with a "miso" soup served in a cardboard cup which is also worth 12 RON, the poor thing. Sushi was well prepared, I hadn’t tested it in Japan, but the one I tasted in Thailand was like this one, and it has a pleasant taste. However, what is annoying is the presentation: couldn’t the petty piece of eel weighing 20-30 grams on top of another 30 grams of rice, which together cost 12 RON, be served on a plate, considering this amount of money? Well, no! They are better served in some transparent plastic boxes, which copy the design of the ones in on board airplanes. The sticks are also of the cheapest kind, made of minimally-processed bamboo, the quality of which is actually worse than that of the sticks in Chinese restaurants. In Chinese restaurants, a helping of 3-400 grams costs between 16-30 RON!!!…
The conclusion is that you can’t really feel comfortable in there, with those refrigerated display cases roaring next to you, holding on to your campaign casserole and paying 86 RON for the amusement above. Maybe this "concept" specializes in delivery, and in this case they could auction off those horrific tables. The florists in the area are sure to be fighting over them, as they couldn’t be so stupid as not to have some sushitogo on a genuine Japanese table!