Eating Trendy Sushi

There are two things that I really like to do in my free time.  The first is doing things that are free.  The second is doing things that are fancy.

By their very nature, these two things tend to be mutually exclusive..."fancy" implies expensive, and "free" implies that I'm not rich enough to afford the expensive things.  However, through a bit of research, my friend Emily and I discovered a magical place where fancy and free collide:

The Dallas Fish Market.

OK, so the name makes it sound cheesy.  To counter this, I should point out that the Dallas Fish Market is not actually a fish market (as I thought it was when Emily first suggested it), but is a fancy schmancy seafood restaurant in downtown Dallas.  You know the type of restaurant I'm talking about: streamlined interior decor, servers dressed in all black, where things on the menu don't have decimal points and where most of the prices are in double digits.  Thee atmosphere ironically screams of a twenty-to-thirty-something demographic even while appealing more to the budget of accomplished businesspeople than your average grad student.  However, on Wednesdays from 5-9, The Dallas Fish Market serves up complimentary sushi in the bar to anyone who orders a drink.  Yes, please!

So in pursuit of free sushi, Emily and I set off on our adventure into the trendy world of young professionals.  In true city-chic spirit, we took the DART to the restaurant (the Dallas Area Rail Transit, for you non-Dallas folks).  I'm not a fan of driving or parking in major cities, so public transportation was a good idea.  But, it was here that Emily and I began to discover a pattern that would be somewhat consistent throughout our dinner adventure: the pattern of ALMOST being all city-tastic and awesomely trendy, but persistently falling a bit short of the mark.  The first place that this pattern began to reveal itself was in the attempt to purchase a train ticket from the automated machine, while a security guard condescendingly shouted semi-helpful instructions at us from afar.  Finally in possession of the ticket, we proceeded to take the wrong stairs down to the platform (the main stairs were closed), and ended up on a sidewalk hovering about 30 feet above the platform, thereby forcing us to retrace our steps back to the ticket machine (and past the laughing security guard) and take the elevator.

Once we were ON the train, things were a success, and we got ourselves to the Akard station, navigated the short walk to the restaurant, and were immediately seated in the bar.  The bar was filled with high tables and stools and cylindrical lamps, and the restaurant had sort of a bluish glow about it that got progressively blue-er as our meal went on.  The setting was like a scene out of a chick-flick where the fabulous young heroine meets the dashing love of her life...unfortunately, Emily is engaged, and all the men (which were few) were rather too old for my taste.

Over bops our waiter, who hands us two menus and tells us the details of the sushi deal: buy a drink, receive four pieces of sushi.  Buy another drink, receive four more pieces of sushi.  And so on.  Kind of like giving a dog a treat for rolling over, but giving people sushi for increasing their blood alcohol levels.  You know, same thing.

Waiter walks away, and Emily and I start to peruse the drink menu.  Immediately, we discover that the specialty drinks are falling into the $10 range, so we call the waiter back over and ask if there's any discount on the drinks for happy hour.

"Not on the specialty drinks, but the Cabernet and the Chardonnay are $5, and well drinks are $4."

"OK, thank you," we reply.  He walks away.

"What are well drinks?"  I ask Emily.  I'm by and large a non-drinker, and therefore I am not familiar with the associated lingo.

"I have no idea," Emily answers.  

"Uhh, ok...better go with the wine.  What did he say, Chardonnay and what?"  

"I don't remember the other one..."

Drop another notch on the trendy meter.

"So let's get the Chardonnay, yes?"  I laugh.

"Yes!"  Emily replies, also laughing.

The waiter comes back.  "Have you decided?"

Emily ventures forth: "Yes, I'd like a glass of Chardonnay."  I add that I'd like the same.  The waiter walks away to retrieve the drinks.  Mission accomplished.

Like I said before, I'm not really a drinker, but I always feel somewhat more fabulous when I'm sitting next to a long-stemmed glass of wine.  The Chardonnay really wasn't bad as wine goes (all you wine-lovers can scold me later); I've never had white wine before, and I liked it way better than red wine, even if I still didn't end up finishing the whole glass.  

Then out came the sushi.

When I hear "complimentary sushi," I envision tiny little rolls of rice and cucumber, with maybe a hint of crab tossed in for good measure.  After all, it's free; better not get your hopes up, right?  Not so at The Dallas Fish Market: we had pieces of Spicy Tuna sushi and Rainbow sushi.  Granted, you don't get a choice of sushi; the waiter informs you of what the free sushi is, and you happily accept it.  It was fun though, because I tend to play it safe with sushi and get the same things every time, and it was fun to try something new.  I'd never had Spicy Tuna or Rainbow sushi before, and I really liked both - especially the Rainbow sushi, which has a piece of cool white fish around the outside, with crab in the middle.  SO good.

With only four pieces of sushi per person, we finished our mini-meal fairly quickly.  Emily debated ordering another glass of wine to acquire more sushi, but decided against it.  Personally, I had eaten a late lunch and wasn't super hungry, and didn't have a strong desire to order a second drink when I wasn't going to finish the first.  I was happy with my four pieces of tasty trendy sushi.  So we got the check, and headed back off to the DART in good spirits.

All in all, I had a really great time on our trendy-sushi adventure.  I keep meaning to explore places in downtown Dallas and never seem to be willing to do the necessary research, so it was really cool to do something in the city.  And, as non-trendy as I may be, I LOVE trendy/fancy food places, especially ones that   don't leave me broke afterwards.  Emily had fun too; in fact, we may go back next Wednesday, and see if she can bring her fiance along...he doesn't like sushi, but he would order a drink.  And when his drink comes with sushi, we will be there to eat it for him.

Because strategy is a very important part of being trendy.