Phil’s blog

I first read about this place on a forum thread on Jatbar.com called “Longest distance travelled for a meal?” Someone claimed to have flown from San Jose to DC without much reason beyond going to this restaurant. I did a bit of research and it has gotten some good reviews, so Justine and I decided to check it out. It’s located in a tiny underground room on the outskirts of Georgetown. I counted seven two-person tables and ten seats at the sushi bar for 24 seats total, but they were very tightly packed. Attire was business casual and you had to put on slippers to go inside. The menu consists of only small dishes, and there’s a $50 fixed-price meal consisting of 8-10 small courses that vary each day. The place is known for the latter so that’s what we went for. Here’s what they served us:

1. mussel soup (mussels-in-shells in a garlicky broth) - pretty good
2. slice of cooked yellow tail in ponzu sauce (soy sauce and vinegar) with snow pea leaves - also pretty good, nothing special though
3. tuna and flounder sashimi - excellent but tiny pieces
4. shrimp wrapped with what looked like bread and deep fried - crispy and delicious
5. a plate with shrimp topped with chives, raw oyster in ponzu sauce, and persimmon pieces covered with a sweet tofu paste - raw oysters are dubious in my book but the shrimp/chives was good and the persimmon/tofu was dynamite
6. three pieces of nigiri: tuna, mackerel(?), and some other white fish - again delicious, but so small!
7. items grilled in front of us: shrimp, scallop, mushroom, beef; served with ponzu sauce, scallion slices, and radish - tiny and tasty
8. choice of grilled meat: Justine had yellow tail, I had filet mignon - outstanding
9. soba - barely a mouthful but good
10. grape sorbet with Grand Marnier - tasked like a snow cone with alcohol but was pretty good

Despite the tiny portions, it was pretty satisfying. I ended up ordering an assorted sushi tray to top it off :] The waitresses were extremely polite and attentive - service doesn’t get much better than that. I probably wouldn’t go a second time because it’s so expensive (for my budget anyway), but it’s nice to try new things and I was pleased with the experience.

Address: 4822 MacArthur Blvd NW, Washington, 20007

I get Thursday and Friday off but decided to use vacation time Mon-Wed to spend the whole week back home in VA. It’s good to be back. Even mundane things like going to the grocery store with my mom are enjoyable. Highlights thus far:

• getting a free roundtrip voucher for giving up my seat on the flight to DC for another one 6.5 hours later (plus a free brief stay at a hotel near SFO and $25 in airport food vouchers)
• relaxing at home
• hanging out with Justine and her sisters
• lunch at Lighthouse Tofu with mom; had soon dubu (tofu stew) and seafood pancakes for the first time - delicious!
• dinner at Makoto in DC with Justine - more about this in my next post

I’m looking forward catching up with old friends through the rest of the week, Thanksgiving of course, and seeing Cirque du Soleil with the Kwans Thursday night.

It’s recruiting season at Google and this year the Associate Product Manager candidates get to go on a scavenger hunt in SF. There were 5 teams, each led by 2 current APMs and with 3 or 4 APM candidates. Rather than find artifacts, we had to complete tasks and capture photographic evidence of them. They ranged from easy (mimic the pose of any statue you see) to extremely difficult (get handcuffed by a real police officer). We actually asked a couple of cops about the latter and were told that no cop would ever agree to anything even resembling this because someone could easily edit the photo, post it on the internet, and get them in trouble. Anyway, we did some interesting things, took some great photos, and had a lot of fun. People were surprisingly cooperative, perhaps because the Frankenstein mask (which we used in nearly every photo) was so amusing.

Tonight I went to my first advanced wushu class at O-Mei. There were 7 other students, probably ranging from teens to mid-twenties. Friendly group of people! I was probably the worst person there, but everyone was supportive of each other so I didn’t feel self-conscious at all. The coach, Sifu Ding Wei, gave me some good pointers. I didn’t get as much direct instruction as from Li Xue, who taught me in previous classes, but Sifu Ding’s presence combined with that of the other advanced students made me push harder than usual. I worked on straight sword sections, and probably performed better than I ever have before despite being out of practice. It was pretty effortless too, at least energy-wise. I was whipping the sword around so fast one of my tassels broke off. I think being around supergood people was the biggest factor, but perhaps my daily qigong and decent sleep for the past few days (6-7 hours a night) also helped. At the end of the class, we all lined up and Sifu went down the line giving each person advice based on what he observed during the class. Very awesome; I have never seen a wushu teacher do that.

On the way home I was thinking about how everyone else in the class was better than I am, and realized it’s the same at work: many of the people I work with are far smarter than I am and better at what they do. I feel most fortunate to be in the company of great athletes and great minds.