Yeah. I didn’t know either.

However, last Thursday, my friend Monica changed my life by offering to share an order of scallop sashimi with me and I wanted to take a few minutes to share the food adventure story!

Monica and I have known each other for over two years now, originally having met through Crossfit Nassau in Princeton, NJ. We continue to lift together wherever we can, and we had a lifting night together last Thursday.

After a great session of squats (Monica PRed!!), deadlifts, lat pulls and then a tabata row… we were HUNGRY!

Last time we lifted together we went out for Chipotle, and this time we were tossing around ideas before finally settling on wanting sushi. We hit up yelp on our phones and found that the closest place was a small local japanese restaurant a few minutes from Monica’s home that neither of us had ever been to. We figured… what was there to lose? It was five minutes away so if we went over and it didn’t look suitable, we could always go to Chipotle instead. Hah!

Well we drove over and went inside and we were incredibly pleased and impressed with what we found! So of course… we stayed for dinner.

Inevitably I didn’t take photos of our actual meal, but Monica and I decided that we wanted to share the house special “Ninja Turtle” maki roll, which had tuna, yellowtail, and cucumber inside… and blue crab on top covered with avocado and an avocado wasabi sauce. AMAZE. Monica also ordered herself a few orders of sashimi, and I ordered a round of tuna sashimi and a california roll hand roll. We were about to send in the order when I saw the scallop sashimi on the list and I mentioned to Monica offhandedly that I didn’t know you could have scallops raw. Monica said they were delicious, and said she’d split an order with me.

Now, I have to say that I have never liked cooked scallops but I figured… why not!

So we ordered our meal and although as I mentioned I didn’t take any photos of our actual meal, this is a pretty accurate representation of what our scallop sashimi looked like that I snagged off of google images. We only had two slices and ours didn’t have flowers or ice… but it was sliced about the same width and had the little lemon pieces between.

I was a little nervous about eating it, so Monica and I “toasted” them and ate them together… and I have to say, it was delicious! The texture was pleasant, almost buttery, and the flavor was similar to crab but a bit more hearty. As I was eating my bite, I mused that I would certainly be trying more scallop dishes in the future.

After I finished enjoying my piece, I looked at Monica and told her that she’d changed my life.