Complaining and Praising - exercising balance

Just like Catwoman is demonstrating in the above pic, it's always best to direct yourself toward the brighter things in life.

Today's been a weird day where I've found myself annoyed, frustrated, angry and stressed. Such a crazy combination (although they are all of close relations).

I'm actually feeling a lot better as I write this and this is great because I want to be fair about a gripe I've had recently with a restaurant in Bowling Green called Uraku.

When the restaurant first opened back in 2001 or 2002, it was absolutely fantastic! I was a grad student at the time and many of the rolls then were incredible with fresh ingredients, good portions and interesting combinations.

I remember how one roll had eel and pear...it was phenomenal!

Other rolls were made at the hands of an artist with either caterpillar or dragon shapes, thanks to the use of shrimp or pieces of fruit.

They were a blogger's dream come true!

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But when I took Julia there last year, I noticed that the place had changed. Apart from the interior being completely different, it became hard to find rolls that sounded great because 90 percent of them contained the dreaded crab stick.

Actually, if we look at the special roll menu together...

...we can see it's actually 83% - 20 out of 24 rolls...

...although many have crab sticks twice.

Still, I recently decided to give the place a second shot after a road trip of festivals.

One roll had crab stick and the other did not...

...and it looked okay at first (although this wasabi is an old batch...really hard).

But, as I ate, I started to examine more closely.

I ordered two rolls: Spicy Mango and Blue River.

Spicy Mango has crab stick, cucumber, avocado, white tuna, mango and sauce...

...but looks like this.

Portions of all ingredients were small, white tuna was unnoticeable and the mango wasn't yet ripe.

Blue River says it has eel, cream cheese, cucumber, avocado and sauce...

...and although I'm happy mine came with shrimp...



...portions of ingredients were still small while not having any cream cheese or cucumber at all.

Maybe they gave me the wrong roll completely, but that still doesn't justify how little fillings there were.

In fact, there was so much rice involved in these rolls that I started poking out the middle...

...and ended up with this.

Maybe I should have eaten sushi in Toledo or Findlay instead. Or perhaps I should have guessed this was more steak-country...

...especially after seeing this cool bull statue in Gilboa.

And I may have let this go if I thought Uraku was having a bad day, but I really don't think that was the case. I think it's just how they make sushi and that just makes me sad, especially when I think of how great it used to be!

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But I don't want to end the post this way. I want to learn from Catwoman and see the brighter things in life as she does.

That's why I want to touch on the great restaurant experience I had yesterday (on Mother's Day), when I took Julia to India Garden in Lakewood.

Here, we have always...

...always...

...had a great meal.

And although I'm not generally fond of buffets, I must say that the lunch buffet we had here...

...was incredible.

So, if you like Indian food and have never been there, get your butts out there and split some naan!

I mean it! ;-)