sushi

On Monday I remarked to adrian_turtle that I hadn't had sushi in too long, and she suggested doing something about it. I mentioned the idea to cattitude, and the three of us met for lunch today at Cafe Sushi (1105 Mass Ave, Cambridge).

They're surprisingly good--we'd never been there before, but the sushi places we previously liked have closed down, so it was time to try something new. The restaurant is very plain-looking, but when we arrived a few minutes before they open there were other people waiting to go in.

I was first impressed by the server, for answering our questions helpfully. The "chef's special sushi lunch" includes a roll of the day; I asked what today's was, and she said she didn't know but it's usually spicy salmon or spicy tuna. I thanked her, saying that "spicy" was what I needed to know, and she offered to have them make it non-spicy. Even better, when I ordered that, she double-checked that I can eat wasabi.

My lunch also included six nigiri, which the server offered to explain to me: six kinds of fish, each with a bit of a different seasoning on top, I don't remember all of them , but the tuna was topped with bits of pickled wasabi. I was also pleased with the mixed salad that came with the lunch special, and Cattitude liked his pickle appetizer, though Adrian wasn't impressed by her seaweed salad.

I made sure to get their business card, as a reminder to myself of the restaurant I liked.

Reading Wednesday finishes up 2019 and starts on 2020

This is the last of my 2019 reading, and the first two books I finished in 2020:

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter, by Alexis Hall. This is light fantasy, largely a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes and the Cthulhu mythos, but he throws in everything but the kitchen sink: at one point the narrator has to light a torch to avoid being eaten by a grue. I enjoyed it.

Words and Worlds: from autobiography to zippers, by Alison Lurie. A collection of short nonfiction on a variety of topics, including being a Radcliffe student in a Cambridge (Mass.) very different from today's, or even a couple of decades ago. I grabbed this from the library because someone recommended the author; I liked it, and may read more of her work some time.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsberg. Classic children's book, which adrian_turtle lent me after it came up in conversation and I told her I was fairly sure I'd never read it. ("Fairly sure" because "the book about the kids who hide in the museum" is something I had heard mentioned. I enjoyed it in a low-key sort of way, but the world has changed enough in the decades since this was written that it's almost historical fiction.

Love Wins, by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell. The story of Obergefell v. Hodges, one of the cases in the Supreme Court decision that gave the US same-sex marriage in all fifty states. I grabbed this randomly as an ebook because it was in the BookBub daily email for $1.99. It's not bad but I wouldn't recommend it; I think they're trying for inspirational, with an odd mix of Obergefell's story and the Cincinnati and Ohio legal context for it. Maybe I read this too soon: I remember a lot of the same-sex marriage fight, including some of the news about this case specifically.