Bringing The Heat With Sushi

While I sit consumed with work and worry over my health, I still eat a lot of Japanese food at lunch - like the Mac's Spicy Salmon Dragon Rolls (photo above), featuring eight rolls of rice with avocado, salmon, shrimp tempura bits, cucumber, mayonnaise, wasabi honey sauce and hot sauce.

Surprisingly, it was hot, but not too hot. Okay - I lied... it was hot. But still, pleasantly palpable. The avocado and cucumber presented a nice cooling contrast with the obvious heat of the wasabi honey sauce and hot sauce - but not enough to chill the heat.

There was a time when I couldn't take the heat (like when I first got to Japan in 1990), much to the chagrin of my India-born parents - but I built up a tolerance there - just not via sushi. I achieved that by going out for meals with Matthew for Curry & Rice... a Japanese-run Indian restaurant in our city of Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken. That menu had a 0-10 rating for spicy meals... and while my hair once caught fire after eating an eight, I dialed back the next time at one, and worked my way up to a nine by the time I left, which was only a two-alarm fire in my belly.

Mac's Sushi's Spicy Salmon Dragon Rolls were deliciously hot, but my tongue only caught fire once while eating it.

I do think the avocado slices could be a tad thicker, though - but perhaps by the time I sampled it, my tastebuds had already been burned down to the nub.

I pick up my Mac Sushi at Fairview Mall in Toronto - thanks for the memories and good eats, guys!

Cheers
Andrew Joseph