Just say no

(A teeny bit of) wasabi on my sushi = good

(A large dab of) wasabi in my sushi = bad

I followed my usual procedure of adding just a hint of wasabi to the soy sauce before digging into my pile of glistening raw fish. It was probably amusing for my companion to witness my immediate coughing spate, followed by the furious examination of the chopsticks (did a piece of wasabi stick to the end??!!) and soy sauce dish (did I catch a chunk by accident?) and the grateful inhalation of my entire glass of water. By the time my ENT (eyes - streaming, nose - twitching, and throat - spasming) areas calmed down, I had decided that the extra dash of wasabi in that bite had been a self-inflicted accident and confidently proceeded to the next piece.

Lather, rinse, and repeat, this time with shocked, mournful, WTF - I checked??!! eyes.

After some poking around, I discovered that the extra wasabi was cunningly hidden in my sushi, courtesy of the chef in response to when I had answered "yes" to some question involving "do you want wasabi?" In addition, the spicy rolls, instead of being tossed with chili oil or somesuch, were made "hot" by the generous addition of the fiery green stuff. We choked our way through the rest of our meal, acutely aware of the late dining hour and that it was our own d*mn fault for not *exactly* listening to a rather crucial question, and continued to smile (with tears streaming from our eyes) and reassure whenever the anxious wait people came to check on us. I was doing a pretty good job of deconstructing my food and avoiding the extra wasabi until I came to my tobiko sushi - the flying fish roe was colorfully arrayed in orange, black, and green; by coincidence(??!!), the inner wasabi in those pieces were layered along the green roe, and there was no way to distinguish the delightful and offending tastes without getting them both. After a couple more sputtering attempts, I left the (beautiful, yet treacherous) pile of green roe strictly (well, mostly) alone.

Happy New Year to us! Learn something new every day!