Goodbye Sushi Ben

Yet another tie to cut before I leave Vancouver: Today I decided to cash out my Sushi Ben VIP card. I have been eating there a lot (18 piece special to go) for the past two years even though I don't really like the food. The rice is stale, the salmon is tasteless and the soysauce has a weird taste to it. I've read somewhere that unscrupulous soysauce factories use human hair as the main ingredient for their products and everytime I taste Sushi Ben soy sauce I wonder a little. The only reason I eat there is because there are really only three choices for food where I work: Sushi Ben, Safeway, or a Chinese restaurant called Uncle Ho's.

So, the card works like this: buy $100 of food and get $10 off your next meal. I have always had my eyes on the tuna chirashi there, but I always thought that $10 for lunch was a bit excessive. Today was different though: I was a VIP. I didn't know how to pronounce chirashi, so I just pointed at the picture when I made my order. "One tuna trashy to go" said the waitress. This set off little alarm bells because I don't like to eat anything (especially raw fish) that is "trashy". But it was free, so whatever.

Here's a little secret about Sushi Ben: The people aren't Japanese but instead they are Chinese people from Shanghai. I happen to know this because I speak the dialect and I can understand what they're saying to each other. When I received my tuna "trashy", I almost wanted to say "thank you" to them in Shanghainese, but I decided to hold my tongue because I didn't want to ruin our special don't-ask-don't-tell relationship.

I wonder when or if I will ever eat here again. I can't picture myself coming back here to eat on a whim. In fact, if this place wasn't within walking distance of work, I would probably avoid it like the plague. But still, I felt a tinge of sadness when I walked out of there today with my tuna "trashy" and a brand new VIP card that I know I won't ever fill up.


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