(Food) and (Restaurants) I Love!

A double feature today in the ( ) I Love feature!

When I was younger, we would go to those hibachi type restaurants and sometimes my parents would get sushi. For some reason, I loved to eat octopus! As I got a little older, I tended not to like octopus and didn't try sushi again for many years. I think I started to eat sushi again when I was in high school and now it's one of my favorites! There are just so many combinations of flavors and textures! And it's not all raw fish. My favorite is probably unagi which is cooked freshwater eel. Any ship and crab you get is cooked as well. I think my favorite roll is the Philly roll (I know...not very traditional). It's a salmon and cream cheese roll with cucumber, avocado, or Japanese green onions depending on which restaurant you go to. Each restaurant will usually have specialty rolls that can be pretty amazing as well (Like the Screaming O at Little Sushi on the Prairie!). So, all in all, I love sushi!

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my husband, a friend of ours, and I had planned on going out to one of our favorite sushi restaurants, Little Sushi on the Prairie. There were a few problems though. One, it was rush hour and we would have to drive to the other side of the Metro to get there. Two, it was snowing!



So, we decided to try another sushi place we knew of that was a bit closer. Well, rush hour got in the way yet again. We were driving over the river into St. Paul, so we thought about trying a restaurant in downtown St. Paul instead. On our way there, we saw a restaurant we have driven by multiple times, but have never stopped at. Well, that changed right then and there!

We walked into Fuji Ya and loved it immediately! It was such a quaint little setting with the snow falling outside and candles on the tables. The restaurant itself was on the small side so I wonder how busy it would be if it wasn't snowing outside! We were a little worried that the prices would be a bit more expensive then we were expecting, but they ended up being around the same price we would pay at our other favorite sushi restaurants. I looked at their specials menu and noticed a drink that I had to try: the strawberry starburst!


(I took these pictures with my cell phone and it was dark so the quality isn't the greatest, but I had to share!)

It was so good! I can't remember all the ingredients used to make this drink, but I know there was plum wine and dragon berry vodka. And then there was the slice of strawberry at the end! The waitress asked what I thought of it and I said it was dangerous...dangerously good that is! I was worried that it would be a bit strong, but it was very smooth and had just the right sweetness to it.

That was just the icing on the cake though. We came to Fuji Ya for the sushi! Before I get to that though, I have to show you the pictures of the chop sticks they gave us:



We got a little chuckle out of the "Super Fun High Quality Chop Sticks" line, but then we turned the chop sticks over...



They have the normal instructions on how to use chop sticks, and then some ways not to use the chop sticks! I think my favorite is the first one where the guy has the chop sticks in his ears! Kind of reminds me of an Andorian for some reason...

We got our sushi and it was amazing! You could tell the fish was fresh and high quality. Another thing I noticed is that the avocado, in particular, was very fresh as well! I don't like avocado and will only eat it with sushi (I even try to avoid it on sushi if I can.). One of the rolls we had had avocado on top. I usually take the avocado off the top, but this time I didn't and it was the best avocado I've ever had. I guess the only complaint I have is that they didn't seem to get too creative with their rolls. I've seen most of the rolls they offered at other sushi restaurants before. However, they were much better than at the other sushi restaurants!

So if you're looking for some fun, exotic food to try, try sushi and if you're in the St. Paul area, Fuji Ya is definitely the place to go!

(Apps) I Love

We're getting close to mid January and one of my New Year's Resolutions has already been broken! I wanted to write on this blog at least once a week. Well, better late then never I guess!

One of the things that I wanted to do with this blog is to start a theme of sorts. Well, I think I found my theme! I find myself saying that I love something so much and it just makes me happy! So I thought I'd share my happiness with you! At least once a week, I will write a post with the ( ) I Love title to it. It could be anything from the weather to a new restaurant I found.

So, without further ado, my first post in the ( ) I Love series!

I got a Droid phone a few weeks before Christmas and I love it! I never thought of it as something I would use all that often, but both my husband and I find ourselves using the apps and internet features so often! One of the fun things about a smart phone is all the apps available to you! I'm going to highlight my favorite three, but I have a feeling there will be more (Apps) I Love posts!

I thought I'd start out with the one a lot of people have fallen in love with, Angry Birds!

Oh this game is so addicting! It's a great stress reliever though! It's a good thinking game too though because you have to think of the simple physics of what kind of arc is going to get the bird where you want it to go. It can be very frustrating too though! There was one time where I was so close to completing the puzzle, but the bird didn't do what I wanted it to do so I slapped my phone! I just ended up laughing for so long! I think my husband thought I was insane! Luckily, there is a free option of Angry Birds on the Android market, but it is one that I wouldn't mind paying a few dollars for.

The other app I love is one I just found recently. My dad was showing us Harbor Master on his iPod so I went searching for it on my phone. I couldn't find it on the Android market, but I did find Air Control!

Basically, planes and helicopters start flying onto your screen and you have to land them without crashing into any of the other aircraft. You also have to land them in the right spot. The red planes can only land on one of the runways and the blue planes land on the other runway. It seems so simple, but it can get really hard really quick! The red planes also have two speeds to them so that can make things interesting. It also gets stressful when you have a lot of helicopters on screen because they go so slow! I did get the free version and it comes with two different maps and two different ways to play the game. The only thing that I don't like about the game is the other way to play the game called Cargo. The goal is to either match up the landing planes color or style, but I can't get it to work. The paid version comes with more maps, but I haven't decided if that's important enough to me right now. The maps look interesting and fun, but I'm having so much fun with the two maps, I don't know if I need more right now.

The third and last app I'll highlight today is one that I've been playing a lot of right now...Solitaire! I have loved playing solitaire for a long time! I would play when I was younger with actual cards (I know, old school right!)! It's just so nice having it right there on my phone for when I'm bored or waiting for something. I downloaded the version made by Ken Magic, but I just looked at the Android market today and there are a few others that I'm a bit interested in now (like one that has 250+ games in it!). The other nice thing about the solitaire apps is that they are more than likely free!

So those are the three apps I'm loving at this moment, but I have plenty more apps on my phone and I'm sure I'll be finding more in the future. If you have some suggestions for me, I would love to hear them!

I already have a lot of ideas for the ( ) I Love series so look for those coming here soon!