One of the things I try to do when I eat out is try many different kinds of food. If I’m eating out and can’t decide between two dishes, 99% of the time I’ll choose the one I haven’t had before. In fact, it was just recently that I had to start relaxing that guideline, as I ran out of untried dishes in the restaurants in my neighborhood. I like takoyaki, I’ve eaten whale sushi, I eat raw eggs over my gyudon, and I do actually eat plenty of squid, despite my earlier experience with squid heads. I’ve even had natto recently that I didn’t mind at all. (For the record, the only thing I refuse to eat is shrimp in the shell. I don’t mean “peel and eat,” I mean “eat the shell with the shrimp”— unlike Ms. Semba, who sees it as another opportunity to get Calcium.) I’m an active and avid explorer of the culinary landscape of Japan.

Anyway, we went to a yakitori restaurant in the Okaido shopping arcade I’ve mentioned a number of times. I couldn’t read much of the kanji on the menu, so I just ordered by picture. I wanted a sushi dish to go with my chicken skewers and gyoza, so I ordered what looked like a deep red fatty tuna.

When it came, I was a little surprised at how much more it looked like beef than the picture. Not the squeamish one though, I plunged in after a brief moment to consider whether I trusted the restaurant’s preparation. I was interested to see what beef sushi tasted like.

It tastes exactly like you think it does. You know when you open a plastic tray of (fresh) raw beef from the supermarket, and you can smell the beef? It tasted about like that. Not really all that appetizing, but not enough of a turn off to not finish the three pieces I got.

After the meal, I was flipping through the menu to see how much I owed for my three small dishes; and relaxing after my meal, I realized I could read more of the kanji than I originally thought. Looking up at my beef sushi, I couldn’t find the character for “beef.” After a few puzzled seconds, I realized what it did have though, was the character for “horse.”

Yes, I ate horse sushi. My stomach turned just a little bit at the realization.

I’m happy to report that I’m feeling no ill effects of last night’s meal- not that I really anticipated any. Overall, I’d say it’s worth trying just to do; maybe order one dish between a couple friends so everyone gets just one piece, though. I was piling on the wasabi when I thought it was beef. I think I would have needed twice as much had I known it was horse.