Another Friday night, another night on the town. We haven't given up yet.
Tonight, we were in the mood for sushi. Now, we had found a halfway decent sushi place months ago, but it was kind of pricey and the sterile, early 80's, Duran Duran decor left us a little cold. Plus, they didn't serve one of our favorite dishes, shishito... Japanese peppers. I had thought they were a staple of every sushi joint, but they had never heard of them there.
So on this night, the boyfriend whipped out the phonebook (yes, people actually use those here) and made a call to a hole in the wall sushi place he'd spotted just down the street from us. He asked if they had shishito and they enthusiastically answered "yes", so off we went.
I was a little dubious. The restaurant is in a strip mall next door to Home Depot. One of the Home Depots. There must be about a dozen of them here. It honestly didn't look very promising, even though the parking lot was packed. But it turns out looks are deceiving, because once we opened the door we were shocked at what we saw.
The place was huge! Certainly couldn't tell that from the street. Half of the space was a traditional Japanese restaurant with a smallish sushi bar at the back, but the other half was a full on teppan restaurant just like Benihana.
We promptly christened the restaurant "Bakohana".
The place was packed and it seems that the locals think of it as a special occasion place, something that became abundantly clear after about the sixth rendition of "Happy Birthday" rang out. We were seated at a table for two and given menus. We were asked if we wanted something to start. I ordered hot sake and the boyfriend ordered a large Sapporo. And then we ordered edamame and... shishito.
The waitress looked at us blankly. "What?"
Fuck. Really? We explained what they were and she said she would check with the chef, and she soon reappeared and told us that although they weren't on the menu, the chef would happily make them for us. A sense of relief washed over us.
Until they arrived.
They were definitely peppers, but they appeared to be stuffed with deviled ham. Not a great start.
In situations such as these, I leave the boyfriend in charge of ordering. Partially because he's better at it, and partially because I'm too vain to bring my glasses into the restaurant to read the menu. He slowly marched down the list of sushi, checking off the usual, the yellowtail and halibut and spicy tuna and such. And then as he got to the bottom of the list, there it was...
"The Bakersfield Roll".
Oh, we had to have that!
We placed our order and while we waited we tried to imagine what was in a "Bakersfield Roll".
Ground beef?
Tater tots?
Chicken fingers?
The food soon arrived and I'm happy to report, it was all delicious. Even the Bakersfield Roll, although I'd be hard pressed to tell you what was in it. It seemed to have shrimp tempura at it's core, surrounded by spicy tuna and God knows what else. I think there was avocado too. The whole thing was drizzled with a sweet sauce that looked like molé, but that couldn't be right. It doesn't really matter, it was all good.
So I have to say the evening was a success. And I'm happy to report we can now add another "good restaurant" to our Bakersfield list. In a year and a half I think that makes three!
