Sushi! And soccer too!

On Saturday night I had sushi dinner with my host family. We did it temaki style, which is rolled. It was actually make your own, which was really cool and fun.

There were two large wooden platters with sogohan (vinegar/sushi rice), plates with dried nori (seaweed), and then various other ingredients in other dishes, including maguro (raw tuna), mayotsuna (canned tuna and mayo), cucumbers, carrots, ikura (fish eggs), and uni (sea urchin). There were a couple of other raw fish cuts, which were good, but I didn’t get the name of them.

Nori (google image)

Maguro (google image)

Ikura (google image)

Of course I tried everything. I bet you’re wondering about the sea urchin, huh? Too bad, I’m going to tell you how we put it together first.

To make a sushi roll, you took a piece of nori, put rice on it, and then picked whatever else you wanted. Then you wrap it all up and eat it. It’s kind of like fajita night at school, only much better. :)

Anyway, the sea urchin just tasted salty and ocean-like to me (I didn’t really dislike it, but I wasn’t blown away either) so I tried it and then left the rest for my host family to enjoy.

Raw sea urchin (google image)

It was really great, and I ended up eating way too much because it was so good. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the ingredients to do something similar back home when I get back!

We finished the night watching the Japan v. Netherlands World Cup soccer match. The Netherlands ended up winning, but it was still a good game and fun to watch with the family. Well, Obaachan was playing her Mahjong game mostly, but she watched a few minutes. :)