the IMPOSIUM

having an office in ucla-country, if nothing else, provides you with twenty to twenty-five restaurants you will, at no point in your life, have any desire to eat at.  this leaves six or seven real options – fast food/chains excluded – covering four types of cuisine: greasy, asian, healthy and sandwiches.  there is overlap of course, as there are some really special healthy-fusion eateries in westwood that make salads AND sandwiches.

when i first started working in the neighborhood, i was pretty spoiled, spending far too many lunchtimes away from westwood, eating amazing sushi i never paid for (but that still managed to eat away at my wallet, as the very generous – and not at all vocal about the fact that they’d been financing my fancy sushi habit – individuals paying for my lunch also set an absurdly expensive precedent as it pertains to tipping valet).  when the bubble burst and i was left to fend for myself, finding lunchtime sushi in westwood became a very important and necessary mission.

sushi muri was right across the street from my building.  it took less than four minutes to get there.  elevator ride and nonsensical hellos to coworkers on the street included.  and it was half-price.  all the time.  note: half-price means eat-twice-as-much in my family so don’t think i’d purposely go to a b-rating sushi restaurant with one of those creepy sushi carousels for the cost savings.  this was purely a matter of decent sushi at minimal effort and travel time.  i would go and we’d keep it safe.  spicy tuna.  yellowtail.  albacore.  the sushi was consistently unexceptional and yet, as i hadn’t adequately searched for a better option, it became my go-to lunch spot.

and then one day the sushi started getting worse, which isn’t hard to tell when you’re not eating rolls with eight different ingredients, including spicy mayo and/or eel sauce.  which i had to start doing, as i slowly ventured away from many of the raw goods. white tuna went first.  albacore second.  then everything had to be doused in soy sauce and spicy mayo.  even salmon.  which is really hard to f*ck up.  so you could only imagine how very broken the camel’s back became the afternoon i took a bite of my spicy salmon roll and pulled a fish bone out of my mouth.  a fish bone when you don’t expect it – especially in a sushi restaurant – is one heavy motherf*cking straw.

charlotte kept going.  maybe it was the shrimp tempura – the most un-f*ck-upable item in a sushi resturant after the cucumber roll – or maybe it was that the employees knew her and seemed so excited when she came in that kept her going back.  charlotte is extra special that way.  then charlotte got food poisoning and stopped going as well.

this morning she took the following picture and had her friend grace – thanks grace – email it to me.  this, mind you, is the most satisfying experience i’ve had with sushi mura to date.

i now frequent (and recommend) isshin, which is way better than passable.  quite good even.  go often.

goodbye muri sushi.  i would have been happy to have forgotten you’d existed if not for the subtle satisfaction in knowing that westwood is now a fresher, tastier neighborhood.