"Man on Fire"

One day many many years ago, I received a call from Tom. He inquired as to what plans I might have later on that evening. Other than an indoor soccer game at 2200, I didn’t have anything else planned. He then informed me that several of his coworkers were going out to eat and most likely get drunk, and asked if I would like to join them since he knew that none of that would offend me. After agreeing to come along, he informed me that they were going to a sushi place called “big tuna”. Now anyone who knows me, is aware that I am not a fan of seafood, whether its cooked or not, but being the fan of adventure that I am, I am willing to try just about anything at least once I decided I would still go. When we got there, his coworkers had been there for a little while, and several of them had a healthy start on their liquid spirits. After some brief introductions, we grabbed some seats next to them at the counter and started looking through the menu. As I was scanning the menu for anything that might appear edible, tom asked me what kind of sushi I liked. It was at this time I informed him that I had never had it before, and that I didn’t like seafood. At this time he gave me a look as if to say “why in the world did you come then?”. He then took the menu from me, and told me that we should get the all you could eat special. For about 24$ we could eat pretty much anything on the menu for as long as our stomachs could go. Not being one to back away, I agreed. For the most part, we started at the top of the menu and just worked our way down, sampling everything they had, like eel, crab, and many many others. After about an hour we had worked our way through most the list, when we got to uni. For those of you not familiar with sushi, uni is another word for sea urchin. It has the texture of mashed up rotten bananas. I don’t remember the taste, because the texture was enough to prevent me from swallowing it, sending my body into convulsions in an attempt to expel the substance from my body. After several attempts to swallow it, I ended up spitting it out in my napkin, so as to avoid having anything else I had eaten try to make an unwanted escape from my stomach. After recovering from the unexpected ambush by the uni, we proceeded through the menu. By this time, everyone at the bar was having what appeared to be a great time. Every couple minutes there were repeated shouts of “saki bomb!”, at which all those drinking would take a shot of saki, including the chefs. At some point during all of this, either tom put in a request for something different, or one of the chefs who had been helping us work our way through the menu asked tom and I if we would be willing to try something. The chef asked tom what he wanted, to which tom replied “surprise me”. The chef then got a large grin on his face, and with a loud scratchy voice and a thick Japanese accent he yelled “good choice!!!”. The chef then asked us if we like spicy, to which we responded in the affirmative. Then smiling the chef asked us how spicy on a scale of 1-10, to which tom again said “surprise me”. With a gleam in his eye, the chef again yelled out “good choice!!!”. After several minutes, the chef appeared with a small dish, which he handed to tom. Tom put a small amount of the mystery food in his mouth, and instantly sweat appeared on his forehead, and tears formed in his eyes! Of course my first thought is that tom is a pansy and there is no way this can be that spicy. So I confidently take a scoop, making sure that I take more than tom did. Instantly my mouth feels like its on fire! I swallow the food in hopes that it will provide my mouth with relief. To my dismay, my mouth continues to burn, and the sensation starts to spread down my throat and into my stomach following the food as it makes its way through my system. It felt like my insides were on fire! Immediately we flagged down a waitress to restock now empty water glasses. We drank glass after glass of cold water, the intense fiery effect never losing any of its intensity. After several minutes of this, we decided our next best option was to order something with rice in it, which would hopefully quench the fire. It takes a good fifteen minutes of suffering before we are able to gain some sort of control over ourselves. At this point, we both are curious as to what we just ate. We ask the nearest chef to tell us what this fiery dish is. He just looks at us with a blank face as he says he doesn’t know what it is, the only way to find out is to ask the guy who made it. After waiting for a while, we see the chef who prepared our special dish. He asks us if we liked it, to which we replied that it was hot. He then shouts out “good choice!!” again. At this time we ask him what was in in, and in the same excited voice he yells out “FISH!!!!  and SPICE!!!”, followed almost immediately with another “good choice!!” The whole afternoon was a great time. After we had been there for a couple hours, we all said good bye to each other and headed off on our separate ways.