irasshaimase!

I love when my dad visits Australia. Not because we have like, an uber-close relationship or anything, but mainly because it means we get to go to Shira Nui. It's this sushi restaurant in Glen Waverley, and, it's alright I guess. Kinda awesome. I don't want to overhype it, since, you know, you'll have ridiculously high expectations, and if you do go, it'll inevitably end in disappointment and tears. So anyways if you do like sushi (and other stuff too, but mainly sushi) You should try to check it out. Maybe.

It's run by this cool sushi chef called Hiro, who reminds me of a younger Mr Miyagi, if he was an Iron Chef with a really cool katana-like knife. He's one of the few people in Melbourne who actually has a license to serve fugu - you know that Simpsons episode where Homer almost dies from blowfish? Well, in order to prevent people from reevaluating their lives and doing everything they wanted to do in 24 hours, you need to get a license from the Japanese government to be able to serve it in restaurants. Anyways, Hiro doesn't actually serve fugu at the restaurant, but the fact that he could if he wanted to is cool nonetheless.

But the katana knife-wielding, potentially fugu-serving, Mr Miyagi is only part of the reason I like it so much. They've got really good regular sushi, but then there's also the mackerel wrapped with clear seaweed sushi and the blowtorched beef sushi. Like, a blowtorch! C'mon, how cool is that? (Please don't go just for the blowtorch - if you don't see it, it'll just mean more disappointment and tears.)

Shira Nui's also the only restaurant nearby that's run by Japanese people as well. Not that there's like a sushi-making gene that all Japanese people have, but it means that they do the Japanese thing of making sure everyone working shouts "Irasshaimase!" when anyone enters. You'd think that everyone shouting at you in a foreign language when you enter a store would be a little weird and scary, but it's pretty cool - I was thinking of of running in an out the shop to see how many times they shout it before they get over it and ban me...