Sushi Sono

I like eating pretty food on days where the clouds mute city noise, when Madeleine Peyroux seems the only appropriate music to listen to, and when you can sip pink wine and look out on a tranquil lake to clear your head. Today I headed 52 miles north to let slippery raw fish glide down my throat.

When I arrived wherever I was in Maryland (ok, Columbia), I moved cochlea-like through small roads and parking lots to arrive at Sushi Sono, situated perilously on the cusp of Lake Kittamaqundi. I had a delicious, dramatic glass of plum wine, which looked like something offered to princesses in Disney movies.



















I started with shrimp shumai, the one Japanese food item I've had that seems like soul food: it's warm and chewy and adorably bite-sized, but here had the delightfully bonus of featuring fresh shrimp.


My waitress was attentive and informative and apparently coveted by other diners (more about that later). Between the jelly fish salad and the live scallop, she recommended the latter. They loved their soy sauce bath (don't worry, I didn't see any recoiling).


I didn't realize that despite all the yawn-inducing mediocrity of an overcast day, I'd eat one of the most delicious sushi rolls, at least this year. I had the Hurricane Eye roll, featuring spicy tuna and crab meat wrapped with soy paper, covered with crispy brown rice, and
garnished with a hot sauce dot. The pieces crunched and gave and didn't hide behind normally chewy nori (toasted seaweed).


I had exquisite, generous pieces of saba (mackerel), garnished with green onions, lemon, and a bit of ginger.

I was already overwhelmed by this point when my last roll came out, the Sono Roll, tempura-fried shrimp (it's there, at the bottom) in the roll, with tuna hugging the roll on top, and sprinkled with flakes and fish roe. As I slowed my efforts to dip these pieces in my soy sauce without them being deconstructed and get them to fit them in my mouth, I was able to watch the show a regular patron put on.



















After staring down the small,spoiled, disrespectful girl at the table in front of me (who had only served to make me fear for the future of children and their incompetent parents) and making her and her father uncomfortable, she was seated after running through the list of waitresses she hoped would serve her.

She ordered a glass of wine and in between sips, left her lipstick upright and open on the table. I can only imagine that this was so she could apply and reapply it easily, to leave those sophisticated lipstick marks on her stemware that all women who used to be little girls secretly love. In between puckers, she poured white wine on her sashimi to make it taste better. I couldn't help but giggle. If Sushi Sono's dining room was as stage, it was like being in the midst of Sunset Boulevard or Gypsy.

Without applying any lip gloss before, I had black sesame ice cream for dessert. It was creamy and toasty and salty, but delicious. Calcium gives me fortitude for the endeavor of dining at 27 more lipstick worthy restaurants.