Onion volcanos blow your mind and your gut

When James and I were invited to help celebrate our good friend's birthday we accepted without hesitation - even though it meant eating sushi. Neither of us had ever had sushi. Well, I take that back.. one time at a grocery store in Florida my mom encouraged me to eat a piece of sushi. It was disgusting. But James had definitely never had it. Weird little chunks of raw fish are a tad outside of his comfort zone.

We met our friends at the sushi bar and hibachi grill on Bardstown Road, Sapporo. We had gotten one of the grill tables. Where I am from, going to the hibachi was one of those special event things: birthdays and dances. There is something unmistakable and undeniably delicious about hibachi rice. I can't get over it. 

Our chef came over to the table and started pouring out the oil over the top, steam swelled and rose over our group. The chef started his routine, swinging the knives and spatulas around, flipping them in the air, slapping them on the table, generally making a lot of show and noise. He did the signiture spin-the-egg-then-throw-it thing and everyone clapped. I love the show, but I love the smell better. Mmm... hibachi rice...

I looked over to say something to James about what we had ordered and saw him staring back at the chef. His eyes were practically popping out of his head. His mouth was gaped open slightly and he was oblivious to everything else going on. I stopped mid-sentence and blurted out, "Have you never been to a hibachi grill!?"

It was another one of those fun big-city experiences. Oh geez. He had never been to a restaurant like this. He was in for a treat. 

He watched with amazement as the chef threw some rice around. I poked him in the ribs and laughed as I told him to watch out for the onion volcano. The wha? And sure enough, the onions were all stacked up and cooked for a few seconds before steam started erupting from the top ring. By this point our sushi rolls had come and the table next to us was enjoying their hibachi chef, too. He grabbed my arm and pointed across to their table, "LOOK!" The chef was popping little clumps of rice into the girls' mouths with impressive accuracy. This amazement went on for quite a while. James watched with a combination of joy and skepticism. Of course. 

After our chef had finished his show and served our table, we finally got down to eating. We had ordered a sushi roll that had a little bit of everything - steak, crab, and something else I couldn't identify. It was delicious after all. I watched as James poked around at it with his chop sticks. He clumsily tried grabbing it and eating it but it was too big. I had been taking bites of mine as best I could without letting the rice, and whatever the unidentified sea creature was, spilling out. 

After a few bites I turned to mention how delicious it had turned out and saw, to my horror, James attempting to saw his sushi roll in half using his chopsticks as a knife and fork. He had pierced part of the roll with one stick and was slowly mashing and tearing through the middle with the other. If the sawing was unsuccessful he grabbed them in both hands with his fists and stabbed each end, ripping the roll apart. Each time he ended up with a pile of unidentifiable steak, rice, seaweed, and crustaceans. 

I politely asked for a fork. For the both of us. 

The night went on and we enjoyed our food with friends. The company, atmosphere and drinks were great. We ended up all passing around shots of warm sake, another new experience for James. Is it supposed to be warm? Yes? Gross.

All in all it was a spontaneous and exciting night. The food was amazing. To sum it all up: the sake shots turned into sake bombs, which turned into jaeger bombs, which turned into straight tequila, which turned into the casino, which led us to get home no later than 5:30 a.m., $400 richer. See what trying new things gets you into?