Bakersfield.com

Sushi Lunch by Frank Gary

6^th Grade Student at Laurelglen Elementary School

My mom offered to take me to eat sushi. Of course I said yes! We went to Akira. When we walked in I saw explosions on the fry grill, the place was dark. We were seated at a table even though I wanted to sit at the sushi bar. I sat facing the window and saw the snowman wearing an American hat. That kinda ruined the whole Japanese decor. I did like how the rest of the restaurant was decorated.

My mom and I used three sushi order sheets to get our selection just right. We had to turn the waitress away a few times before we were ready to order. We kept getting distracted by the explosions coming from the fry grill. I wanted sashimi, so mom labeled one column on the order sheet "sashimi." We proudly handed the sheet to the waitress and she told us we couldn’t have the pieces I selected as sashimi. My mom looked at me frustrated and said "we can’t get what we want!" I assured the waitress it was okay, okay to make mine sushi.

After the waitress left, our mood started to gloom. Our Akira experience was going sour.

But, another explosion from the fry grill distracted us. This time it wasn’t so entertaining. Smoke shot everywhere so I covered my nose with my t-shirt to block it out.

We didn’t wait long to get the sushi. Wha la! The chef made mine sashimi! What a good guy. We tipped him $5. My mom told me to try the soy sauce with the green cap. I didn’t like it. It tasted entirely different than the soy sauce with the red cap. The sushi and sashimi was brought out on two wooden slabs and looked beautiful. I knew then this was going to be pretty good! The salmon roe was as big as the pieces. As we ate, my mom started writing down what I was saying so we pretended to be food critics. So far, I gave the food an A.

The sushi and sashimi pieces were two biters. In my excitement, I took a big bite of salmon roe. I chewed twice, excused myself, and headed for the restroom. When I came back my mom asked "did you spit it out?" I nodded. For clarification, my mom asked the waitress if what I ate was salmon roe and the waitress confirmed it. The tiny eggs on the other pieces were smelt eggs. I now realized those were the orange ones I liked. Because disliking salmon roe was a personal problem, I couldn’t count it against the restaurant.

I continued to eat and tried very hard not to eat with my hands - I was in public. But I had to use them. We didn’t have an eating plate, just the serving plate. So my mom asked the waitress for a small dish or bowl. We only got one between us. My mom used it first, but when she saw I was struggling not to use my hands so she swiped out the salmon roe and handed it to me. We ate till we couldn’t eat anymore. We took eight pieces home for later.

Then came the bill. It was $73.90. Wow, I thought that was expensive for sushi. Mom got out cash! My dad would have been proud she didn’t put it on a credit card. As we were leaving I was thinking that I could have possibly purchased two new games for my game systems with that money. But our experience was not over. As we approached the door I saw two little puddles of blue fire on the first fry grill. Then the chef poured a trail of oil from the puddles to a big puddle of oil in the middle of the grill and it made a huge explosion of fire. I could feel the heat as we walked out the door.

We drove past the Dollar Movie on our way out of the parking lot! Our date wasn’t over. Mom only had one dollar left from lunch so I hit the change in the ash tray. We got $9 out of it. Enough to go to the movie and get snacks! This was a good vacation day.