It was the end of a long Singapore day when the typical subject of “What should we eat tonight,” came up. The decision, sushi. As anyone will attest, I will generally eat anything, but sushi is not my favorite. Being a good sport, I complied. We decided to eat at sushi restaurant in Chimes because Chris had been there many times before and the food was good and the price was reasonable.

Apparently, the proprietors of this establishment saw a herd of muteDonkeys coming their way…

“Hi!” (Japanese, not English) and we were all seated around the bar height table in full view of the sushi chefs. “We would like an assortment of sushi rolls,” Chris requested. After a little questioning back and forth, again, “We would like an assortment of sushi rolls.” Pretty clear instructions, we thought.

The first course: These sushi rolls looked more like little clear sushi eyeballs in a cute little bowl. The four of us (Mick and Simon included) looked at each other…this must be an appetizer of fish eggs. The conversation immediately shifted to comparing these fish eggs to peas and how the little popping action was similar (if you get fresh peas and not peas from a can). It didn’t matter to me, I don’t like peas, and frankly, I didn’t like these fish eggs. If you just swallowed them whole, they didn’t taste like much. If you popped them in your mouth, you got a strong jolt of fish taste. Everyone decided that the meal could only get better from here.

“Hi!” Another customer enters the restaurant.

The second course: This course, as I recall, was a little salad in a little bowl, with some strange sauce on it. I know for sure that it was not a sushi roll. The four of us look at each other…we are actually getting hungry now.

The third course: You are starting to get the picture, no sushi rolls. This time, again in a cute little bowl, is a stringy mashed up melon with some little white seeds in it. It tasted a lot like stringy mashed up Malian with some little white seeds in it. We look at each other. “This is very nice,” said the waitress. We tried, but couldn’t agree, most was left unfinished. “Hi!” Another customer is either coming or going. Chris asks about the sushi rolls…they are on their way.

The fourth course: A whole plate of sashimi. This is fine with at least two of us in the group, but for the other two it is just big globs of raw fish of every variety and color and texture, but the reason I avoid sushi in the first place. No rice, no seaweed, no nothing to mask the task and texture of raw meat. Each bite of fish is followed by a swallow of Coke light (no diet Coke in Singapore). The guys down the counter have the right idea, they are deadening their taste buds with saki.

“Hi!” Another customer or two enter the restaurant.

The fifth course: Real food! A cooked trout! Teeth and all. The first few moments were spent trying to determine how they got the guts out of the fish without opening it up. No matter, the guts were gone, the fish was cooked, we didn’t look at each other, we were to busy getting every last morsel.

The sixth course: Back to the bizarre and about as far away from a sushi roll as you can get. “Oooohhhhh, this is VERY special!” says the waitress as she puts a rather large bowl on each of our platters. Starting from the bottom up, the bowls consisted of a egg custard, topped by a thick salty liquid, topped by the guts of an oozing Sea Urchin. We all looked at each other, this time in disbelief. It would be difficult to describe in words what the inside of a Sea Urchin looks like, but the disgusting look was easily overcome by the disgusting taste. The sushi eaters each took one or two bites and couldn’t go on. I admit, it was a disgusting mix of flavors, but I got almost the entire thing down (with lots of water and Coke light). As it turns out, you couldn’t chew, because you could break a tooth on the remnants of see urchin exoskeleton…

That was the final straw, we started asking for the check. It did not appear that we would ever actually receive a sushi roll, and we did not want to chance another “very special” dish.

The seventh course: The chefs, not wanting us to miss what we came in for. They tell us to wait. They wildly work behind the counter. Finally, we each get our sushi roll. The ironic part is that the sushi roll doesn’t even have fish in it. It is a thin set of some sort of crab legs (I hope) poking out of some seaweed. Completely demoralized, we ate the chefs offering. Honestly, I don’t remember what it tasted like, I shut my taste buds off for the sixth course.

The story is not over…the check arrives. Chris gets it first. You can actually see him struggling to comprehend what is presented on the receipt. The majority of the color has washed out of his face by the time he musters the courage to hand the bill to Simon (the payer of all bills). Simon quickly has the same perplexed look. We all look at the bill and then look at each other.

This was a red-letter day for the muteDonkey brigade…

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