Noble Fish, Clawson

Yesterday I sat at my desk, thinking about the huge kale salad that I had brought with me to perpetuate the belief that I love healthy eating. I had eaten salad for lunch every day since Monday. I wasn't feeling it. I love kale, but we needed to be on a break.

"On a break." Does everybody else think of this too?

Best show ever.

To get my morning news hit, I went to the Detoit Free Press website, where I saw this breaking news. I was clicking around, checking out the different categories, and when I saw "Best Sushi," I knew what I was going to have for lunch. Sorry, kale salad. Imma eat you for dinner.

I headed to Noble Fish, which, by all accounts, is the best sushi outside of Japan. I do wonder though if people just like it so much because it's in the back of a grocery store and you feel really cool when you walk in, nonchalant, like yes, I'm in a grocery store eating sushi that was just sliced and served up in front of my face. I know everything about food and you'll never be as cool as me.

Anyway, I sidled up to a stool at the sushi bar and stared at the menu. I eat a lot of sushi, but the menus continue to intimidate me. I never know if I'm ordering enough, or if what I'm ordering is enough for a million people, or if what I've ordered is something crazy and I'm going to have to smile and eat it anyway like I totally meant to do that.

I've done that before- in France- with a pig foot. A PIG FOOT! Can you imagine the acting I did to pretend that it was what I meant to order?! I would have given Ann Hathaway a run for her Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

I ordered two pieces each of salmon nigiri, yellowtail nigiri, and scallop hand roll nigiri. It went a little something like this.

It was very good. Fresh fish. Moist rice, not at all sticky or crunchy. The scallop hand roll had a bunch of scallop in each piece, and I love those little orange circles. See why sushi intimidates me? Because I have no idea what those things actually are. I just know that I love the way they kind of pop against my teeth. The sushi was great, but if this is the BEST SUSHI IN DETROIT, then I know some people who need to make a quick trip to Okemos and hit Maru.

Or maybe I just needed to order more. I would be happy to do that. This wasn't enough food.

The real show-stopper of this lunch wasn't the food, though. It was the middle-aged man sitting next to me. You know how sometimes you can just feel when someone wants to talk to you? It was radiating from him. So I turned and struck up a conversation with Alfonso, who is a plumber and amateur racquetball player, and as a result I was treated to an alphanumeric analysis of each letter of my first name and to a honey tangerine, which he pulled from his pocket and presented to me.

I'm considering whether or not I eat it. Don't tell my mother. I felt like he was just my kind of person, because I would definitely give someone a clementine from my purse and expect them to eat it.

By the way, my first name has 9 letters. It was a 15-minute analysis. I love people.