Sushi Express

台北市大安區復興南路二段191號

02 2709 9117

The almost immediately outdated pop culture reference edition

CIVIL WAR

QUIP-TAIN AMERICA                                        VERSUS                                                   IRONY MAN

As part of Avalon's grand plan to start reviewing everything she sees (her own reflection, dreams, strangers' butts/bums), our bumbling protagonists bumbled in prosaic agony into one of the many, many Sushi Express outlets dotted around the planet. In a desperate attempt to motoriz/se a resolutely pedestrian review of a devoutly skateboarding establishment, our dear hosts will compete for your affections and/or to the death.  

--- Round One ---

FIGHT!

Stationary cup of tea vs. bowl of miso soup is a metaphor for our fighting styles.

Mandarin Proficiency

"Well Dave, I think this outcome is pretty cut-and-dried. Duncan's no threat to the champ."

"You're right Davetwo, we wouldn't even see this kind of matchup outside of today's exhibition fight. You got to hand it to the kid though, I have never seen anyone get humiliated so badly so many times without quitting or learning how to dodge a question. You got to admit, that's special." 

"A special type of stupid perhaps, Dave."

"Probably a cultural thing, Davetwo. I know that 1776 happened and, for better or worse, 'winning' is okay now, but we just can't do that in the UK. Tall poppies and whatnot cheerio pip pip wink wink eggy in a basket."

"No comment, Dave, no comment... Wait, here comes the waitress! She's asking if they want miso soup, and Avalon is relaying the question to Duncan."

"No surprises there Davetwo, this will be over in a few minutes."

"Duncan's already substituted a second tone for a third tone, Dave. Some customers are leaving, they think it's all over..."

"It is now, Davetwo! Avalon was distracted by Duncan's incompetence and has repeated his tonal mistake!"

...DOUBLE KNOCKOUT!!

--- Round Two ---

FIGHT!

FUN FACT! Duncan has this image tattoo'd on his chest. 

Anecdotes

"This is more like it, Dave! If both competitors are on top form, this should be a clash of the titans."

"In that one of them eats children, and the other has his appendix eaten on a daily basis?"

"To be honest, Dave, I have a really small reference pool. I just repeat things I hear. Cultural osmosis, you know?"

"No worries, Davetwo. And speaking of small reference pools, something something WWII, something something YouTube, something something Game of Thrones, something something fireflies?"

"Man, I love that song."

TECHNICAL KNOCKOUT --
AVALON WINS, BY POPULAR DEMAND!

--- Round Three ---
FIGHT!

omg...

...What the feck is this?

"Well Dave, it looks like the menu has not been updated in figuratively forever [approximately literally 18 months], in preparation for the final round today's triathlon of trivialities."

"Exciting stuff, Dave. Avalon has ordered Duncan to take the mystery sushi off the conveyor belt for inspection."

"And Duncan is tasting it now... His brow furrows as he desperately tries to taste without taste buds."

"Won't be too long before all of Duncan's senses fail him, and he's trapped with his own thoughts forever."

"That's a sobering thought, Davetwo. I don't know where I'd be without my ability to sense gravity."

"The mesosphere by now I'd imagine, Dave."

"Going to have to stop you there, Davetwo-- Avalon has also failed to place the sushi by taste, looks like another double knockout..."

"They're both in the clear! A more recent menu has swung around on the conveyor belt at the last second! Turns out the Japanese for 'pesto' is 'pesuto'. What a world we live in."

DRAW!

AVALON WINS

FINISH HIM!

[Duncan is mocked to death]

AWKWARDNESS: ✦✦✧

The conveyor belt was overflowing with plates resting  precariously atop one another, like a long line of food-bearing dominoes, just waiting to topple onto Duncan's lap. There was almost the sense that the staff were eager to finish work as quickly as possible, an attitude unknown to industrious types like our heroes. Said heroes are generously only adding one star, mainly because their hopes were not high anyway. 

SNUGGLINESS: ✦✧✧

Well, again, it's kaiten sushi--one does not go for the snuggles. (This did not stop Duncan from trying.)

DISRUPTIVITY: ✦✧✧

As far as Dunka-dunks can tell (about five yards in good light), the conveyor belt setup at Sushi Express has not substantially diverged from the original setup introduced in the 1950's. Let him know when he can order stuff on a wall-mounted iPad and have it delivered on a little turbo-charged boat.

PRETEN$ION: ✦✧✧   

There is a saying about getting what you pay for.

THE fLaVO(u)Rz: ✦✦✧

...One could do worse (mesospheric praise).

Tino's Pizza

台北市信義區松高路11號 信義誠品B2

02 8789 2189

Aquiver with anticipation of getting their socks rocked by an afternoon viewing of The Jungle Book in 4DX (that is FOUR DIMENSIONS, mind you: x-, y-, z- and "fuck yeah"), our heroes went to while away the lunch hours at the first place they found when they couldn't find the first place they had been planning on finding but had not found.

The instant Avalon spied "peanut butter fries" on the menu, she knew that she was destined--through the power of her order--to bring them into the four dimensions and INTO HER BELLY. She was not disappointed! Neither was Duncan! As part of a "long-con" plan to compile the various aspects of Avalon's identity, murder her, then take her place as Grand Vizier of Americaland, he too is gradually becoming a peanut butter addict. Avalon is pleased. She has secret plans of her own.

Both of them are "playing it cool" for the moment though, so they shared a large order of duck pizza in a totally inconspicuous way, completely casually, like any two ordinary people on a mildly pleasant lunch date might do. Duncan gestured at the pizza as if to say, "My, what a comfortingly conventional food item! It clearly has no alterior motives, and isn't that a coincidence, because neither do I, especially not towards you."

The pizza looked pretty delicious when it arrived at the table, having achieved almost every color of the rainbow except for blue and violet and possibly indigo (if you count indigo). But alas! This pizza was all style and no substance, and actually quite bland.

Duncan was overwhelmed with disappointment. 

It's okay though, he got better. 

AWKWARDNESS: ✦✧✧

The staff were too busy to be weird to us.

SNUGGLINESS: ✦✧✧

It's in a mall food court, so you get what you get I guess.

DISRUPTIVITY: ✦✦✧

The pizza is nothing new but praises be to the genius who decided to put peanut butter on french fries!!! However, our heroes discovered later that day that Ireland's Potato offers this heavenly manna as well, so maybe it's not as unique as all that.

PRETEN$ION: ✦✦✧ 

It wasn't too terribly expensive, really.

THE fLaVO(u)Rz: ✦✦✧

That bland sham of a pizza is worth one star, but, again, the fries saved it.

Taipei City Hospital Zhongxiao Branch

台北市南港區同德路87號

02 2786 1288

Never let it be said, gentle reader, that we are less than 100% committed to providing you with a disturbingly comprehensive assessment of Taipei's many fine eating establishments. To get the lowdown on the food available to Taipei's hospital inpatients, Duncan contracted appendicitis, and then sent a series of increasingly dire and desperate messages to Avalon, documenting his rapid physical and mental decline.   

Must...live tweet...my own...death...

In a final act of defiance against his host's plans to leave Taiwan, Duncan's appendix ruptured, thereby allowing it to stay in the country forever as a series of cryosection slides. Breakups are oft painful, and this divorce was no exception - Duncan's primordial howls of pain could only be silenced through the delivery of copious amounts of morphine.  "No wonder the British East India Company had so many satisfied customers in Taiwan," droned Duncan, nationalism (and opiates) filling his remaining organs. "Everyone likes effete drug-dealing pirates."   

There's nothing quite like bowel surgery for working up an appetite

Lost in a haze of morphine and deeply inappropriate jokes, Duncan thought back to Food Critique 101...

FADE IN:

INT. LECTURE HALL.

DUNCAN, a young man of about twenty years, is sat toward the back of the lecture hall, and using this vantage point to stare gormlessly into space. Sat next to him is AVALON, an anachronistic and anatopic middle school student. 

AVALON: 

Christ, you're old.

DUNCAN: 

[noticing her for the first time]

 Wait, how and why and when are you here? This doesn't make sense on any level... 

[he trails off as the lecture begins]

LECTURER: 

Welcome to Food Critique 101. Before we make a start, I really need to ensure that all of you on this course can actually eat food - we had some unpleasant accidents in previous years...

AVALON: 

[triggered] 

DUNCAN:

 [interjecting] 

I thought this was supposed to be a safe space for everyone!

FADE OUT:

Duncan regained consciousness, his eyes fixed on the tray of congee and vegetables on the table next to the bed opposite his. It would be four more days before solid matter would pass his tonsils, a fact as unpleasant as this sentence sounds.

AWKWARDNESS: ✦✦✦

Not sure where to start, to be honest. Perhaps the part where fluid drainage after surgery caused my meat and two veg to swell up like overfilled water balloons and I had to tearfully explain the situation? They didn't mention that in the brochure.

SNUGGLINESS: ✦✧✧

The adjustable hospital bed almost made up for the pain, the lack of privacy, and the long nights. Almost.

DISRUPTIVITY: ✦✦✦

One of the few places in town you can get the opiates. 

PRETEN$ION: [with health insurance] ✦✧✧ [without health insurance] ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦

The financial cost was dwarfed by the emotional cost.

THE fLaVO(u)Rz: ✦✧✧

The morphine dreams more than made up for four days on a drip followed by food blander than Duncan's comic patter.