Sushi sushi!

Today is the last day of my nice four-day weekend (CRT gets both Lincoln's B-Day and President's Day off). Sarah and I enjoyed a nice trip to Vermont on Friday, and have pretty much taken it easy for the rest of the time off. For a travelogue of our adventures at Ben and Jerry's and the rest of our Vermont trip, visit Sarah's blog. Here she is at work on the post. I don't know how she manages with that tiny monitor.



But today, we did decide to take advantage of the weekday lunch price of an Asian buffet a few blocks from our place. It's called Sakura Buffet, and it bills itself as "The Ultimate Sushi Buffet." It was pretty good. The buffet featured some traditional American-Chinese buffet staples--General Tso's chicken, Mongolian beef, Sweet and Sour chicken, hard boiled eggs--as well as a fairly impressive sushi buffet. Varieties included lobster, shrimp, tofu, some impressive-looking cornucopia-type wrapped offerings as well as standard salmon, tuna and California rolls. Jeff will be particularly interested to know that there was also an item called a Philadelphia roll. I did not try that one. Here are a few of the items I did try:

Tuna, octopus, and black dragon rolls

The house special, Sakura Roll, tofu roll, and amazing Volcano Roll. The Sakura roll is delicious, with tuna, roe, daikon and possibly some other vegetables, topped with a spicy Sriracha/mayonnaise type dressing. The Volcano roll is a revelation, though not really traditional sushi. It appeared to be a nori roll, tempura fried, filled with avocado and roe, topped with a variety of fish and vegetables, and finished with spicy and sweet dressings. I am not sure whether the name refers to the spicy topping, represents the veritable explosion of ingredients, or subtly warns that you likely will violently erupt a few hours after eating it.

As we moved toward dessert, Sarah enjoyed a fig-filled peach bun.

Dessert proper included the ubiquitous cream-filled pastries as well as a variety of mini cheesecakes. These were chocolate-chip and lemon.

As we left, I snagged a few of these candies. I have not tried them yet, but the fruit pictured on the wrapper appears to be that of the cashew tree. I doubt the letters will be decipherable on this picture.

Now, I nap.