The Sushi Saga

Joe has been trying to get me to love sushi.

And it has been attempted before. And before Joe, the couple of times I had ever tried sushi, I pretty much wanted to throw it right back up, directly onto whichever butt-face made me try it.

But then came Takenoya. Joe took me there back when I first moved up here, and made me try the spicy tuna roll. And, um, I kind of liked it.

(Kind of.)

Then a while later we went to another sushi place in LA for my cousin’s husband’s birthday. Another spicy tuna roll. I’m warming up to it.

Then, a couple months ago, Joe took me back to Takenoya. I think it was shortly before I went in to get allergy tested…so I didn’t yet know that I am most definitely and unfortunately allergic to sesame. And guess what kind of oil they use in, like, EVERYTHING at Takenoya?

Um…yeah. Sesame. Not to mention the black sesame seeds all over the rice and stuff. But I didn’t know this yet.

So as I’m ravenously devouring my spicy tuna roll (because, let’s face it, I’m kind of sold. But only on spicy tuna. Baby steps, people) — suddenly the insides of my cheeks start to feel kind of swollen. And then my throat feels itchy and slightly in danger of closing up. Now, the cheek swelling had been a common occurrence whenever I had anything with mustard in it, but this was much, much more severe. And mustard never made my throat itch or feel like it was closing up.

Anyway, I ate about half of my tuna roll before I realized that the allergic symptoms were starting to feel rather scary, and then I stopped. I drank as much water as I could. I tried not to freak out. And about six or seven hours later, I felt almost totally normal again.

(Side note? Allergies kind of suck.)

So, fast forward a bit. I found out I’m allergic to sesame AND mustard, and I begin to cut them completely out of my diet. My general food-allergy symptoms have greatly improved, and I take it as a good thing. No more sesame or mustard for me. Kind of a hassle, since there is a lot of stuff out there that uses sesame and/or mustard oil/seeds/whatever. More than you might have realized, until you become an indredient-reading pro like me.

I told Joe at one point somewhat recently that my theory about the previous sushi incident was that they probably used sesame in their food, AND that wasabi might have mustard in it. I was about to swear off sushi all together, for the rest of my life, and I was pretty okay with that.

But since we’re probably honeymooning in Vegas, there is this sushi place out there that is supposedly the GREATEST thing ever, and they have an all-you-can-eat special, which, for sushi lovers, is apparently heaven. And he wants me to be able to try it. So we decided to go back to Takenoya for a little investigation/test of sorts.

This happened last Friday. Joe and I and his neighbors Jeff and Leah headed over to the restaurant. I felt comforted by the fact that Leah had never had sushi before and was a little bit nervous about it…so I wasn’t the only one feeling slightly tense. See, Leah’s a vegetarian, so she had a hard time finding something on the menu that didn’t have meat (or meat-juice?) in it. But she did (yay!) and I think she liked it (double yay!). I asked our waitress if she could tell us a) whether their wasabi contained mustard and b) whether everything was generally prepared with sesame oil and if that could be altered for a special circumstance.

Our waitress?

Was amazing.

If I could have tipped her 500 bucks, I totally would’ve. But I couldn’t. So there.

Anyway, long story short, she told us that, yes, most of the dishes used sesame oil, but they could easily substitute olive oil, and no, she didn’t think the wasabi had mustard, but since they bought it from a supplier, it was possible. (Or something.) Alas, out came my famous spicy tuna roll (and my teriyaki beef and my lump of white rice), sans any traces of sesame seeds or oil, and I ate the first few pieces of sushi with only soy sauce (no wasabi) to ease myself into potential reactions.

All clear.

YAY!! And then I finished my roll with a little bit of wasabi in my soy sauce, and that seemed to be fine, too.

Double yay!

So…as long as the cooks and waiters don’t mind doing a little extra work for me, I think I can become a sushi liker. Maybe even a sushi lover.

Maybe.