301 moved permanently

For dinner tuesday night, A and I met up halfway between where she was and I was. A suggested Miyake, a sushi spot on Palo Alto's University Ave. Palo Alto, if you don't know, is home to Stanford University. Yes, people who go there are really smart. Freakishly smart. It's also one of the most wealthiest universities in the universe, so the campus itself is really beautiful and swanky. The main strip is also fairly swanky as well. Nicer than any college or university I ever went to... not that I'm knocking University Circle in Cleveland or Guadalupe in Austin, but we didn't have sushi joints.

Miyake is made for college kids. It's cheap. It's close to campus. It prides itself on getting people drunk on sake bombs. It has disco lights. Did I mention it's cheap? In the short time we were there, they put the lights on a couple of times and made some kids get up on chairs and do sake shots. Do you see the lights? And all the mirrors on the walls? But at least there's no pretense here. They know people are here to just have a good time and get drunk and maybe have some mediocre sushi. Let's not pretend it's haute cuisine.

A got a few rolls... the summertime roll, a spiy tuna roll (it was supposed to be a hand roll but it came out a regular roll), and another roll with eel in it. I loved the bright and colorful dishes they served everything on.

I wasn't really feeling like sushi, so I went with a nebenyaki udon. I had no idea it would come in a giant metal cauldron of a bowl. It was huge. It tasted ok. I didn't expect much. It was only $8 or so, and the bowl was huge, so it was rather a bargain. In any other normal japanese restaurant it would have been 1/3 of the size and at least 50% more expensive. So all in all, it was a good deal.

I also got a spicy california roll. It was also ok. Better than I expected really. Beautiful plate. The service here is fairly fast and friendly. It's a very strange looking place inside. Large dining area, one entire side being the sushi bar. There is a sushi conveyor belt. The decor sucks, and there are two out of place giant corinthian columns in the middle of the dining rooms. But I hear the place is really fun on the weekends and when you scream "sake", everyone else screams "bomb".