Siddity In The City

Mmmm, Sushi.

I wake up, I eat, I shower, I work, I sleep. These are the actions that make up my day. They are not always in this order, but usually, they all occur, eventually. This, as you can see, is not all that exciting, so I have been trying to come up with things to make my days more interesting. Things like this blog. Things like hanging out with (now gone) ISF. Things like....Meetup.com. Meetup.com, if you haven't heard of it, is a website that lets lonely and/or bored people make up reasons (meetup groups) to meet up with people they don't know who share some common interest. Examples: writers meetup, bloggers meetup, parrot owners meetup. Last week I attended The Black New Yorker's Dinner Party Meetup at the Park Avalon, and had a fabulous time, so I thought I'd give another dinner meetup a shot--this time as organizer of the NYC Sushi Meetup! I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. I can't organize my sock drawer. But dang it, I love sushi, and I want to share that love with the world. Or at least with a small percentage of the NYC population. Which is how I found myself at 2nd on 2nd (27 2nd Ave., F or V at 2nd Ave.) this evening, sipping a choco-mandarin cocktail in the dim light, waiting for someone to show up for the party so we could get our collective grub on. TBNY showed up first, followed shortly thereafter by a friendly fellow named Karl. The first official Sushi Meetup was under way. Yay, sushi! We ordered drinks, and checked out the menu (which, though of dinner menu size and heft, incidentally, seemed to be devoted entirely to drinks, except for the very last page). Unfortunately, this was when I discovered that, despite the restaurant's listing under "sushi" on Citysearch and this graphic on the restaurant's web site, they don't sell sushi. Hell of a place to pick for a sushi meetup. So we finished our drinks and moved. In fact, we followed TBNY's and Karl's noses to Sushi Park (121 2nd Ave, F or V to 2nd Ave stop), and thank sassafrass we did. Sushi Park, while not spanktastic, was pretty darn good. It's actually a Korean-run restaurant, which means you can get jigae and sushi at the same time if that tickles your fancy. And if you spend more than $14 on sushi, it's half price! Yay, half price sushi! Of course, we did not realize this when we settled down to order, and frankly didn't understand why we were being given a 50% discount (I only just learned why here) even after we left. But we took the discount and ran, yessireebob. It almost seemed naughty. Halfway through the meal we were joined by Heavenly Diva, and in short order we were all chatting and chowing like old friends. I had the spicy combo maki, dragon maki and rainbow maki, and it was all very good, but at those prices, what I had is almost besides the point. The food was good, the waitstaff was friendly, and the company was great. HD and TBNY together are a force to be reckoned with, and Karl was a riot. By the end of dinner we were all laughing so hard we were in tears (I highly suggest that, should you ever meet TBNY, you ask her about her last karaoke experience. She even acts out the best parts). In all, despite the venue complication, I think we had a pretty good time, and I'll do it again. If you want to join us next month, click here.

posted by Sid @ 9/24/2004 01:58:00 AM