Eating in China gave me an iron stomach. Other people get sick from the simplest of street foods, and a cafeteria epidemic took down half the medicine department this year. I, on the other hand, haven't had food poisoning for 15 years.
I love being able to stomach the best of foods and the worst of foods, but I do miss certain luxuries when I'm abroad. Aside from insects and horrifying arachnids, one of few things I actively avoid is Chinese sushi. After two weeks of deprivation, I would have killed for some Package A at Flying Fin when I got back.
Good things come in small packages, but this package only starts small. The Miso Soup and Edamame are standard, and Flyin Fin builds up from here.
The half-portions of Seaweed Salad and Calamari Salad are sweet little snacks. The calamari is cold and soaked with one of the best marinades I've ever had, and both bites give your appetite a boost.
The Mixed Tempura is a pretty big basket, full of lightly-battered veggies and shrimp. The sweet potato will always be a fave, but they get major props for making all the tempura taste really good... Even the onion is edible.
I shelled out for the Package A because the 26 pieces of Mixed Sashimi are show-stopping. They're so fresh that they taste more sweet than briny, and you never know exactly what you're going to get. The Bluefin tuna is lean but the texture and flavor-burst makes it taste like toro. The salmon is slippery and slides right down, and the Tasmanian salmon is a little richer, delivering some extra oomph. I thought the yellowtail was great, but the baby yellowtail is a whole different ballgame, so impossibly delicate and refined. The halibut knocked it out of the park, and although I don't know what sauce that is, I sure am glad it's there.
The chef slipped me some Mackerel once, and not only was it the first mackerel I didn't hate, it was delicious! It was vinegary but sweet, and for once, it didn't have the smell or aftertaste of a Chinatown sewer. Individual orders of Female Octopus are fragrant and tender, and sometimes you get sizeable Scallops, with a zesty lemon and a yuzu sting.
Witchcraft! What other explanation could there be? An expensively yet fairly priced place that keeps me coming back week after week. It is an addiction that puts me in the poorhouse yet I cannot stop this madness. I am hypnotized by the bluefin, I am a slave to the salmon, I cannot sleep for my love of sashimi. Sorry to the other sushi places in South Bay, but Flyin Fin has me bewitched.
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