Finding food.

One of the aspects of living in Carson that I've been very pessimistic about it the food scene. Probably because if the food scene in Washington D.C. disappointed me, I know the food scene in Carson would be virtually non-existent. When I talk about food scene, I mean variety (i.e. diversity of genres and flavors), non-chain (though I eat at chains a good amount, I would prefer not to), and fresh, quality, tasty food.

I haven't explored too much, but nothing has really tickled my fancy, except for the fact that I have an In N Out Burger joint five minutes from my house now (so much better than Five Guys!!). There are, however, a surprising number of Asian restaurants here in town. But I'm very suspicious of Asian food in places where not too many Asians live -- the Asian population in Carson is about 2%, or about 1000 people out of 50,000. We tried one Vietnamese restaurant, called Pho Country, and it was decent. Not terrible, not terribly exciting either. But then again, I only ordered pho and that's not too difficult to make decently.

Mr. TPG's boss mentioned that there are a lot of sushi joints here in town. I'm on the hunt because this girl loves sushi, but the reviews on Yelp do not excite me very much. First off, and I apologize to my non-Asian readers including my dear Mr. TPG, but I take reviews of Asian food by non-Asians -- particularly non-Asians who grew up either (1) not eating a lot of good Asian food or (2) in a place without good Asian food -- with a grain of salt. This is because the flavors that most non-Asians like in their "Asian" food is not authentic. I prefer the authentic when I go to an Asian restaurant. If I don't want authentic, I go to Panda Express. Don't get me wrong, I eat at Panda Express probably as much as the typical American kid, much to the pity of my fellow Chinese people, but when I go to a local Asian restaurant I want real Asian flavors.

I'm probably never going to be satisfied unless I live in San Francisco, New York, Vancouver, or somewhere in Asia. But I can live with something decent. However, if you're putting slices of lemon on top of your sushi, I can tell you already that I probably will not be liking your restaurant. Fresh sushi melts in your mouth and doesn't really need anything to flavor it. I'm serious. The best sushi I've ever had didn't even need a dip in soy sauce. It was amazing. It was also in Japan. Hah. But lemon on things that shouldn't have lemon on them indicates that you are probably trying to mask a less-than-fresh fish taste.

Anyhow. I can rant forever about the way many sushi restaurants are (1) ruining true sushi by totally catering to American taste (seriously, the rolls are out of control) and (2) taking advantage of how "hip" sushi is by charging an arm and a leg for poor quality food. Call me a food snob, but from the way it looks -- though I'm hoping to be proven wrong -- I will be reserving all my food cravings for my trips back to the Bay Area.