Blu Blogging: Sushi Night

Last Wednesday, I went to Sushi Night at Blu Seafood and Bar. It was four courses for $40, per person, and we each had an excellent dinner. They kicked it off with ahi tuna, with a green papaya salad. That course also had abalone with pineapple and scallions. It all tasted great, but the abalone shell was also gorgeous.

Next we had a North Carolina yellowfin tuna and lump crab roll with avocado, cucumbers, wakame and spicy aioli.

This hebi tataki was my favorite. It was marlin, spice-encrusted on the outside and completely tender on the inside, served with braised fennel. It was a great combination of flavors and textures.

The meal finished with a large serving of wasabi pea encrusted North Carolina dayboat wahoo with sweet soy, wasabi cucumbers and sticky rice. It was all delicious. Separate from the cost of the meal, each course had a sake or plum wine pairing, arranged by the Hope Valley Bottle Shop. We actually ordered the cold-unfiltered sake, Tozai Snow Maiden, because my Most Faithful readers had not tried it before. It's different from the brand that I'd previously tasted, but I though it was good.

Close Encounter of the Feline Kind

I'm sure most people prefer to leave work than arrive there. For me, it's also a matter of going down a steep ramp, rather than going up it. The other day, going down proved to be even more interesting than it usually is. I was turning the corner when I saw a beautiful cat on the other side of the railing. As I've blogged before, feral cats are very common on Duke's campus. When I was a student, they were almost always scrawny, but now almost every one I see is plump and has a gorgeous coat. This one was no exception.

Without the railing, he, she, but probably not it, would have quickly run away, but I was able to get a little closer and I zoomed in for this photo. I'd love to have a tabby like this someday. A few seconds later, he decided that I was getting too close for comfort and then we were both on our way.

Blu Blogging : Lobster Roll

I don't make it to Blu Seafood and Bar for lunch very often, but I've been eager to go have one of their new lobster rolls, since it's been added as one of their new lunch menu items. Fortunately, when I was there for dinner one evening last week, they still had a few left over from lunch. It was really very good. As you can see, it was packed with lobster and, perhaps more importantly, it didn't have too much mayonnaise. Overall, I would rate it higher than Nantucket Cafe and Grill's lobster roll and I hope I'll escape work one of these days and head back to get another one soon.

Next Wednesday, Blu is going to be having a special sushi dinner! You can check their events page for more information.

Dragon in Colored Pencils

I drew and painted a tremendous amount when I was in high school. While I nominally took correspondance courses for most of my schooling, I went to the high school and stayed for three periods of art, two days a week. The last two years, I took independent studies for which I had to come up with five major projects per semester. I drew a lot of dragons and this was one of my favorites. Chrome is amazingly fun to draw.

Why am I showing you this now? I'm having it framed! I'm very excited that Bull City Art & Frame Company, at Brightleaf Square, in Durham, is taking care of this for me. I'm looking forward to having it hanging in my home and hopefully seeing it on a regular basis will inspire me to start painting and drawing again. Of course, I've been hopeful that a lot of things would do that, but we'll just have to see.