5/21/03 Monster Sushi Sucks; Peter tapes Grease at VCS; run into Ivan R.G.:





Today, Peter (again, against his better judgment) is videotaping a play with me at the Village Community School, deep in the West Village. It will be Grease. We set up the equipment, and went looking for a place to eat. When Peter and I look for a place to eat, it is inevitably SUSHI!

Here's Peter, joining me at a place called Monster Sushi. It's a chain sushi place. That is an oxymoron. This is the one on Hudson St. in the West Village. I thought the West Village was too sophisticated for sushi chains.




Ok. Same dish. "Tuna Tataki." On the left, Monster Sushi. On the right, Show Win in Northport, LI. Even if you don't know anything about sushi, or fish, or even tataki... you can clearly see the difference in the quality, portion, and presentation of the serving. Monster Sushi blows. And it is unfortunate that some people's only exposure to Sushi is at a place like this.




Their "gimmick" is that their rolls (makki), are supposed to be very large, or "monster" sized. Well, they're quite puny, the fish is sub-par, and even the rice isn't that tasty. Yes, even the rice can vary from good to bad, as it is made on site, using rice vinegar and sugar. The wrong combination produces stupid sticky-rice.




Carving some sweetness to wash down our surprisingly bad sushi, we went to this place on the corner of Hudson and Leroy. It's charming. Old world flavor. There's a mean old woman in there who inevitably stares at you while you try to decide what you want. And the candy is mostly stale. But the place LOOKS amazing, as you can tell from the facade. We got sour gumballs (which kids used to sell on the playgrounds at Harbor Hill Elementary in the late 80's) and stale candy corn, probably from last Halloween.




Here I am, at my post, ready to "experience" Grease for the first time, all over again.




Peter smiling.




The guy on the stage is Andrew Robinson. He's the teacher in charge of the show, and the video orders. Nice guy.




Who's this? Well, you might remember him from....




April 24th!!! Here he is at UCB cagematch with Louie. The girl on the left is his ex-girlfriend who is on an improv troupe at the UCB. So.... what's the connection?

O.k. Louie and I know Ivan from Buck's Rock. He used to the the guitar counselor. Almost every day, you could see him on the porch with one or a group of kids, all learning or playing guitar. Then, once a week, there was "Guitar Snack," in which anyone who had a guitar could show up on the porch and jam for an hour, all in unison. Lots of folk and alternative stuff, being played by sometimes upwards of 30 kids with guitars, all clustered around Ivan.

Then Ivan shows up at UCB, because his ex girlfriend is in a troupe. So on April 24th, he sat next to me in the audience.

Then he shows up at the Village Community School the night I'm taping the play. Why? Because he's the pianist for the show. He works there on occasion teaching guitar, and they asked him to be the pit for the middle school play.

Small world.