A group of us went out last night to Japantown in San Jose. It is one of only three such communities left in the US (there were more than 40 before the internment of Japanese during WWII). At a tip from Rob Brooks-Bilson we went to Kubota for dinner.
Several of us ordered the chef special sushi, which is essentially all you know before it shows up. This is a picture of my plate, although I'd already eaten a couple of pieces. One measure of good sushi is whether or not you need to use soy sauce and/or wasabi. I'd poured some soy sauce into the little bowl, but after lightly dipping the first piece realized it wasn't at all needed. Each piece had a different amount of wasabi that provided varying levels of heat to each piece. The toro and the hokkigai were easily the best two pieces. We finished the dinner with mochi ice cream, always a treat.
We took the light rail to Japantown but by the time we left it had finally cooled down enough to walk back. This evening, the group of people and the sushi, was one of the highlights of the week.