Friday Five

The Week

Take a guess as to where I was this week. Go ahead – guess. I’ll give you a minute.

If you said “Houston”, I’d say move to the head of the class, except of course for the fact that the question was way too easy. If you said “San Jose” or “Tampa”, I’ll give you 2 points for a good guess. If you said “San Diego”, well, then, you must be new here.

This was a rather stressful week for me as not only did I have to teach, but I also was delivering a keynote for the MCT Virtual Summit on Wednesday night. Actually that’s not completely true – the session started at midnight on Wednesday, so it was technically Thursday morning. But despite all of that, both the keynote and the class went off near flawlessly. In all the week went as well as it possibly could have – although I was dragging for about 3 days in the middle there.

The Restaurant

My favorite sushi joint in Houston closed since my last visit. Brokenhearted, I’ve begun the search for a new location, and I may have already found it.

I’ve long believed that there’s an inverse relationship between the “coolness” factor of a sushi restaurant and the quality of the sushi they serve. When you’re spending that much money on being hip, something has to suffer and it’s usually the food. Besides, people there are more interested in being seen than actually enjoying a good meal.

Sasaki further proves this point. Sasaki is a tiny, unassuming restaurant in a strip mall. There’s maybe about 15 tables, and about 10 seats at the sushi bar.

I was warmly greet upon walking in, and settled in at the sushi bar. I went for my standard Kirin and asked for “chef’s choice sashimi plate”. (For those of you who’ve never done sushi, the best way to get the freshest fish and expand your horizons is to let the chef lead the way.) The chef, who was very friendly, put together a plate with tuna, salmon, some form of a bass(?) and snail.

Yes, snail.

As I said above, when you trust a sushi chef you never know what you’re going to get. I’ve had snail before in the form of escargot, and while I liked it I could never get my mind over the fact I was eating snails. But, the chef served it up, and I’m going to eat it.

And I’m glad I did. It had a very delicate flavor. I don’t know that I could truly explain it, but it was real nice. As for the rest of the fish – outstanding.

I may have found my new spot for sushi in Houston.

The Travel Note

I finally saw Up in the Air. The movie itself left me rather flat (it really didn’t go anywhere), but it did a decent job of showing the life of the road warrior. In particular, George Clooney’s suitcase – you’ll notice he was very careful about where he put everything. I’m the exact same way. With my eyes closed I can tell you where everything belongs in my suitcase.

The Five

There are perks to being on the road as much as I am. Below are the five best things about travel.

1. Upgrades – in particular on airplanes. Yes, the decent food is nice. And the free alcohol is great. But really it’s all about the seat – greater comfort and more room.
2. Visiting cities I wouldn’t have otherwise. I never would have chosen to go to Boise; it’s now one of my favorite towns to visit.
3. Seeing friends in other cities. I’ve been able to get out to DC to see Abram many times, Memphis to see old college friends, and many others.
4. Free travel. I’ve been able to use points to get many free tickets. I was also able to purchase two roundtrip tickets to Australia for just over $700 total.
5. Being able to shortcut lines. In particular the security line. Can easily cut 30 minutes off the time it takes to get to the gate.