You fall like flies when its your first time....

              Everyone remembers their first time. Excitement, fear and probably some liquid courage.
Mouth watering, beautiful yet at the same time, something so unknown that you're left wondering "Is this really safe?".  Just remember, we wont laugh if you gag and if it smells like fish, its probably bad.

Everyones first time eating sushi is a daunting experience (what were you thinking of? Pervert.) If you've never had it before your first thought is usually the California roll. Nothing raw, thats pretty safe right? Yes.. But extremely boring to your sushi chef. As a sushi master, i loved to be challenged with every customer i met. Now, that being said, do go out and order a bunch of things that you wont eat. Look on the menu.....okay, see where it says Eel? Dont run! Eel is a wonderful starter for most beginners. Its cooked, its sweet and its taste when done right i.e. served warm. Get a roll with Eel. Nom Nom Nom! Good right? Okay, next, shoot for shrimp. No, its not raw. A majority of places just fry whole shrimp. (We didnt, at Harbor Docks, which i think was the best way, but who listens to me? Im white) Anyways, get yourself a crunch shrimp roll. Mmmmm, tasty right? With rolls like that, you can pretty much drown the bastard in soy sauce and it will still be good. So go wild girl, its your party. When you start getting into bigger and better things then i might have to slap your hand away and tell you know. But just know i do it because i love you. This blog will be cut short because im hungry and ive got a better idea of something to write in the coming weeks, but i will close on this thought.
       Wasabi. If youre new, dont touch it. It wont kill you, but you need to know how to play with fire before you can fully use it.
      Everyone have a good night and Aloha from Hawaii


P.S.- Next week ill be coming to you live from a secret location!!! So secret that the very mention of its name would destroy the world as we know it. <3

Chiba-ken

                  Chiba-ken is nestled in between a small bubble tea bar and some other random shop. The restaurant itself is a testament to a modest japanese establishment. Nothing too flashy. A few plants surrounding the outside patio. A small sigh above the door is one of the only indications that it is in fact  Chiba-ken. Inside is a a mix of modern and traditional decoration, with bottles of sake lining the back wall like a very tantalizing advertisement.

                        When i first walked in this place. i had an instant sense of home. Ive been to many a sushi bar and havent felt this kind of excitement in a place since the first time i walked in to Harbor Docks (ill explain later). Greeted with a friendly “irasshaimase” which means “please come in.”  Like almost every mildly traditional place ive been to, they offer you green tea from the start and a hot towel. On our last visit they failed to do so,which was kind of a disappointment, but I can over look that. The menu is written in both English and Japanese, which i love. Along with the phonetic pronunciation of the Japanese words on the page.

My appetizer was going to be a spicy Himachi roll. Himachi is yellowtail by the way, also known as a Japanese Amberjack. (Yellowfin is a type of tuna, people get Yellowtail and Yellowfin mixed up constantly.) At first apperance, I was a little turned off by the way the inside of the roll looked. It tasted great, but looked strange. Perfect amount of spice, along with cucumbers, made it a very tasty roll.



After that, came the main course. Tuna and avocado roll along with Tuna and Octopus nigiri....

 Definitely the highlight of the night. I will always have an undying love for the tuna avocado roll. Two beautiful flavors, melding together to make something that can excite my taste buds in a way ive only imagined in my dreams.

  In addition to the heaven that was the Tuna avocado roll, my Tuna and Octo nigiri made a perfect ending to a culinary trip that was almost derailed be a strange looking roll. I do want to comment on how fresh all of this tasted. Ive rarely enjoyed tuna as much as i have from here. It tasted like it was cut directly from the fish, just out of the ocean. Im sure it wasnt directly pulled out, but thats also something to say about the quality of this place.



Other fun things from this night....

Shrimp Tempura

Oni-goroshi sake

Firecracker Roll

Good night. 

So, overall a fantastic experience at Chiba-ken. For me, it was a familiar reminder of why i enjoy sushi so much. For others, it will be a venture in a new territory. 

Delay

          Sorry for the delay, 

                          My original plan was to write a blog about the sushi on Kauai. Well, a lot of really...not so good things happened there. So, we will continue with the blogging and such tomorrow. Sushi from Oahu, a place called Chiba-ken. No endorsements, no bullshit, just my take on the place and my recommendation on what to get from a sushi chef. But, in lue of a blog, today i humbly offer a picture of me looking confused, and one of the only pictures of my tattoo that you'll see till its finished.

Quack

A new begining....again....

First and foremost...

Thank you...

If you were'nt reading this, well, id probably be off doing something far

less productive. Ive been needing a good creative outlet here, and i think ive found it.  

As a forewarning... 

Im bad about capitalization, punctuation and all other tion's related to the English language. 

You've been warned..... 

Bad idea in a bottle

 Ill explain my mission first. People have long had a great fear and misunderstanding about the mysterious world of sushi. And with the recent interest in the cuisine over the past 20 years, the fear has passed, but the misunderstanding remains. There are many keys to picking excellent fish to devour or finding that perfect roll to destroy while you drink sake and get as loud as you possibly can. Either way, its good to know the ins and outs of a "decent" sushi establishment, as to not offend the possible (but highly unlikely) Japanese sushi chef.

-First, above all else, you need to feel comfortable with what youre eating. Countless nights i have seen some dude come in, trying to impress his date, and order some of the most obscure (and most expensive) fish, only to take a few bites and leave the rest to sit out, staring me in the face. Dont worry, you'll get laid tonight, just dont ruin what i consider an art.

If youre most comfortable with eating a california or a cowboy roll, the do it man! Just do it like a Boss and she'll be more than impressed. 

^ Merican Sushi Chef
Does not understand
Japanese...

-Second, Dont order in Japanese unless you're in Japan. Yes, sometimes its cool to speak another language in an attempt to really feel like youre fitting in to your surroundings, but, as i said earlier, most sushi chefs in America arent Japanese. (Vice like, California or Hawaii.) Now, that being said, if you know your chef is from Japan and you're mildly fluent in Japanese then it could be alright. I know my boss, Yoshie, used to love speaking Japanese to customers. She tried teaching me but i have lazy ears and plus, im still working on mastering the English language myself ('Merica!)

-Finally, you live in America (or one of its many territories..), not Japan. The same rules in etiquette dont apply here. If you want to drown your one piece of a Destin roll (tuna, avocado, green onions and spicy mayo for those of us in NW FL...) then by all means, do so. Im not eating it, you are. We all take pride in what we do, so we try and send out the best product possible. But after it leave my bar top and heads to your mouth, well its all you baby. Do what you want. Just do you....

Now to the brass tacks of this whole thing. Im going to take you on a little spin around my world and share my sushi experiences. If you agree or disagree with anything im saying, by all means let me know. Ill probably disregard it anyways, but everyone is entitled to an opinion here. 

And now, ill leave you with something nice to look at....

Just myself.

"Delay does not react well with reactivity."


    First of all. Sorry for my absence. The path ive chosen leaves me little time to write to you, so ill make the most of it. For the last few months, ive been out doing things ive never thought id do, Going places id only imagined and learning thing that will flood my heart with a better understanding of the world itself. I wont preach of american globalization or anything of that nature. Its not my place, nor shall it ever be. Those conversations are best left for a good bottle of wine and even better company. What i will say is that we, as a nation, have a fantastic lifestyle. We spent a lot of time in Bahrain in my travels to the middle east. For those of you that dont know, its a small island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia and a stones throw from Iraq and Iran. The people tolerate us out of necessity, and for that ill be forever grateful. Its a very interesting change of pace there. Things are slower, time is taken, so for us it would seem as if they are lazy or something like that. One thing i found particularly interesting is they're protection of religion. Taking pictures of almost everything is forbidden, especially the mosques. Personally, i wanted to see an actual mosque in the middle east, but never had the opportunity. (hopefully next time.) Seeing as how a majority of my work is in the Middle East, i was more than overjoyed to be head to Asia next. The beautiful city of Hong Kong had much more to offer than i expected. To be honest, id almost put it up there as one of my favorite places to visit....almost. I indulged my little fat asian kid inside and ate as much Ramen as possible. Plus a number of other things that im sure id never eaten before. Aside from food, the one thing i really took from HK was my visit to a small buddhist temple inside the city. I popped a squat on a bench in front of it and watched people stop by, breaking from their daily routines to pray to buddha. In a way, i was almost jealous. i barely find the time to shave in the morning. The next stop i willfully omit from this post. Guam is its own beast in itself and we will just leave it at that. Back to Hawaii....
Words cant accurately describe the feeling you get the first time you pull into homeport, weary from months at sea, to see hundreds of people cheering your return. Those last few minutes, everyone pushes out as much work as they can to make liberty call come faster. You feel an overwhelming sense of happiness, just from pulling into port. You'd figure one would feel a sense of relief from getting back. Ive found it more of a distraction from my troubled mind. As usual, ive got someone on my mind, and as usual its the same person. Caught playing a cat and mouse game with myself, paralyzed by the same old antics, its a small relief to be able to concentrate on something else than her. distance is a real bitch sometimes. Ill turn my head and cover my eyes as fire engulfs the sky, but ill be fine. Im always fine.

Id still catch a grenade for you...

I try to rationalize whats really going on

Was this fate?

What am I being told here?

Just mere weeks before i set on out on my great adventure,

and an obstacle has been placed in front of me.

Dont get me wrong, 

Its not something I want to avoid.

Its something very exciting.

And its a total secret...

But just as a little insight....

This girl totally blows me away....

The Future is Bulletproof....

Last night I had a dream.....

I was back on base with some of my shipmates, we'd just come back from a bar on Corry, when we

were stopped by three men in a SUV. 

They look like your usual type of hostage taking criminal....

Black ski masks

MP5's (its a submachine gun)

and just a general pissed of attitude.

As we are getting tossed into this SUV, one of my friends decided to play hero

and wrestled one of the baddies. Seeing him struggling with this hard dog, i felt

compeled to help my friend. As I go in to do what i assume was some

kick ass finishing type move..

*Bang*

And I fall to the ground. 

Id heard dying in a dream was supposed to be a scary thing..

but it really wasnt. 

That being said. It made me, along with a conversation I had yesterday, think about the direction my life was going in and if Ive in fact accomplished anything at all. 

For 24ish, Ive learned a skill most white people only dream to learn. Loved, lost and seen

someone else take my place. Ive been overseas and kick myself in the ass and joined the military.

I feel like I've done a lot. But im not fulfilled. I always want more. I want a little me eventually, a wifey and atleast a house and a dog. (no white picket fence though)

Dead would be robbing me of my great journey in life.

And im not about to let that happen. Not yet at least.