Sushi in Zurich

So when it came time to figure out where to eat for dinner, it was a complicated process. This was mostly due to the whole smoking being allowed in restaurants thing. I actually found a few resources online that list non-smoking restaurants in Zurich. The selections ended up being quite slim. There was a thai place, a vegetarian place way south of downtown, and a few other places. Yes, in the entire giant city of Zurich, exist only a handful of places where there is no smoking. So this was one of the reasons why I ended up at Isakaya. Yes, I came to Zurich and ate sushi. In the land of fondue and raclette, I ate raw fish.
It is a teeny tiny place, with no smoking, and no cell phone use. Hallelujah! There are about 15 seats in the place, tops. About a handful of tables and some seats at the bar. They sell sushi. That's it. No ramen, no udon, no chicken teriyaki. Just sushi. There's only one chef - the old japanese dude. And he makes all the food. There's no kitchen, it's just sushi bar.
I got a cup of miso soup and the sunomono salad. The miso was excellent, and had some juliennes of daikon in it. This is the first miso I've ever had where they threw in some daikon, and I quite enjoyed it. The sunomono was also excellent, zesty, sweet, and sour.
I got a sushi platter called " ganze portion" which had some tuna roll, cucumber roll, and sushi pieces of salmon, tuna, yellowtail, shrimp, tamago, and masago. This wasn't the prettiest sushi in the world. In fact, it seemed quite hastily made and not well put together. The rice kept falling apart. But damn it if it wasn't super fresh and delicious. Who knew? Not necessarily made with love, but made with super fresh ingredients. Mr. Japanese sushi chef in Zurich was a bit heavy handed with the wasabi though. There were a few bites where my sinuses were cleaned! The sushi itself wasn't freakishly expensive, but the soup and salad and water were ridiculously overpriced. That's how they stick it to you. If you're in Zurich and need delicious smoke-free sushi, stop by here! You won't find any crazy rolls or bento boxes, but you'll get extremely fresh sushi made with like.

Swedish Cafeterias

My family has a mental defect. Why? Every black friday, we go shopping. We don't do any of that doorbuster nonsense, but we do go shopping. To malls, shopping centers, that kind of nonsense.
On this black friday, we stopped by Ikea. Luckily, stuff from Ikea isn't typically what makes for good holiday gifts, so it wasn't very busy. Since it was lunchtime, we had to stop for a meal at their cafeteria. Moms got the shrimp sandwich and some potato soup. I've had the shrimp sandwich before and yes, it's good. It's got a freakishly large dollop of mayo, but otherwise, good stuff. The soup was also pretty good.
As for the rest of us, we all went with swedish meatballs. C'mon, we're at freakin Ikea, we've gotta get the meatballs! I don't know what it is about these that makes them so damn tasty. I just can't help myself. They always come with lingonberry jelly. I got mine with some mac and cheese too, cuz y'know, I love me some mac and cheese. I always make myself a lingonberry juice spritzer when I'm there. Oh so good. And man, the food here is so damn cheap. And there's no lunch prices and dinner prices. It's just Ikea prices all the time. If I was homeless, I would totally eat here all the time.