Series Part One: How to be our best selves, cherish what’s important and seek to uphold our community during this most trying of times.

Supporting local businesses - LIVING BETTER Food & Drink at Tsunami Sushi

This is Part One in a series where I hope to inspire us to be our best selves, cherish what’s important and uphold our community during this most trying of times.

Love in the Time of Cholera was a novel by the Nobel prize winning author from Columbia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s about enduring love and it compared being lovesick to being ill. Today, we have love in the time of COVID-19. It calls for keeping love alive during the threat of a novel virus.

Remember when date night started with a cocktail at the bar in your favorite restaurant, followed by dinner and then, perhaps, an after dinner drink? Or, perhaps, you went to a movie, concert or a play. Ahhhh, those were the days.

Today, date night is going for a car ride to curbside pickup at that favorite restaurant. This is temporary life in the quarantine lane. And, I live in the land of drive-through daiquiris, so it could be worse!

Constant close quarters with our loved ones, with few options to decompress, pursue hobbies and release stress at the gym or social outlets has presented a whole new slew of relationship challenges. Date night has always been a recommendation for keeping relationships fresh and fun. So how do we do that when we are ordered to stay at home. Dining rooms are closed, but U. S. state guidelines still allow food pick-up to go. So, here’s one idea - drive-by date night!

While this article will focus on keeping up with dating your domiciled loved one, spouse or significant other at home in order to keep relationships functioning at their best during stay-in-place restrictions, I found an interesting article, from GQ (of course), that profiles the trials and triumphs of virtual e-dating at a social distance HERE. My heart and prayers go out to those singles isolated alone at home. Its trying, to say the least, to be cooped up with your loved ones but we are not alone.

Supporting side-lined local businesses, and the decimated hospitality, industry is critical while we wait out COVID-19. So in the spirit of the drive through date night - here’s to supporting our favorite local dining establishments. In this series, I’m highlighting some of my local favorites, places I’m picking up food during social distancing. These are the dishes that continue to delight our palates. Hopefully, by giving a shout out to those special places where the I’ve returned to almost weekly, over the years, I encourage you to do the same. This post is about drive-by dating and one of my favs of two decades - Tsunami Sushi.

Let’s support the restaurants where the food, service and atmosphere didn’t let us down in the good times - by not letting them down now in the tough times.

I remember when Tsunami Sushi opened opened 20 years ago in Lafayette, LA. My sister, who had lived in the other L.A. - on the West Coast, wanted to go to this new boîte where they served raw fish, i.e. bait in this LA. She was sushi experienced. But, my mom and I were skeptical. She coaxed us with the suggestion we try a cooked item on our maiden sushi voyage. She assumed a raw dish or sashimi would test the limits of our culinary squeamishness. In those many years since I have come to embrace all aspects of sushi dining from the raw to the baked! And this is where it all began…

While waiting for our dining adventure to begin, I took in the new restaurant’s design. Opened in our loosely entitled historic downtown district, the decor was Asian fusion cool combined with restoration hip exposed brick walls. It was impressive. I knew the owner’s amazing parents. Their offspring mirrored my sibling history. Some siblings stayed local while one sibling left the Gulf Coast for that other aforementioned coast. It was a true blended LA/L.A. aesthetic that worked beautifully.

Temporarily on hold, but some day to return - the creative and colorful cocktails that abound from the inventive bar staff at Tsunami Sushi.

Find variations on the ever popular Cosmopolitan to a Mardi Gras themed beverage or a new take on the mint julep. Tsunami Sushi is a frequent winner of the Absolut Best Martini contest held annually in Lafayette for Healing House. Even as these necessary financial support events are on hold, read more about this worthy putting the “fun” in fundraiser HERE and the amazing grief work Healing House provides for children who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling HERE.

Way back when, I’d seen sushi restaurants in my travels to Europe and South America. At that time, they were small, quiet restaurants set aside in hotels to attract the influx of Japanese tourists and their cash that was, then, flooding the travel industry. I didn’t see throngs, or a diversity of diners, in these small enclaves of Asian cuisine.

I thought this to myself as I sadly shook my head. This place, with it’s beautiful interiors, was destined to fail. This was, after all, a traditional, we-know-everthing-there-is-to-know about seafood local environment. Heck, this is southwest Louisiana, in the heart of Cajun Country, where seafood and good dining abounds. And since I adored this family, I dreaded to see the inevitable happen.

I am humbled and grateful to confess I was horribly, horribly wrong. And, I was wrong on a monumental scale. Tsunami Sushi made sushi converts, and then sushi fanatics, out of the state Louisiana.

Not only did Tsunami not fail for even a second. It became THE hot spot to dine, drink and see and be seen. It’s popularity helped to speed the revitalization of the downtown area. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say it’s my belief that Tsunami was among the first to elevate sushi throughout the state of Louisiana to the heights of popularity that remains here today. Louisiana is notoriously slow to pick up on trends but once we embrace an outsider we remain devoted. Sushi is permanently entrenched here now. Thank you, Tsunami Sushi!

In further travels, I’ve seen the evidence that the global rise of sushi’s popularity is full blown and unrelenting. Through the years, I’ve been blessed to have tasted sushi in innumerable fabulous establishments from the high end to the humble. They’ve ranged from the luxurious, expensive food art of celebrity chef and pioneer Nobu Matsuhisa’s restaurants in L.A. and Miami to an equally exquisite meal from the minuscule, take-out only sushi window of Sushi Girl in Kauai. I list some of these amazing seafood and sushi restaurants, with photos, in my article on the best fishes dishes HERE.

Every time I have sushi elsewhere, I realize once again, the treasure we have in Lafayette in Tsunami Sushi. Their dishes can rival sushi offerings anywhere. And since that fateful day, when I first tried sushi there, many other sushi restaurants have sprung up in in Lafayette, LA.

I plan on profiling another excellent option right in my neighborhood soon - Rock N Sake.

Tsunami Sushi’s website can be found here. Since the auspicious opening in Lafayette, there are now 3 locations - Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Of course my fav will always be the OG in Lafayette. But I, also, highly recommend the Baton Rouge spot. That location’s view of the Mississippi River from the top of the Shaw Building in Baton Rouge is breathtaking.

The Tsunami Sushi staff is amazing. They always remember us, even when we haven’t dined in awhile due to having our sushi fixed delivered.

Now we’re missing the opportunity to go on site and rue the days we complained about having to put on makeup and get out of yoga pants to go out to dinner. Today, we would gladly change into our cute clothes for the opportunity to hang out with some of the best bar staff in town.

Check out my previous article on the best fish to eat to optimize health HERE. It’s a great way to stay healthy during a time when its even more important to optimize health. Learn about the 5 fish that have a whopping 250 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids and very low levels of mercury.

Watch for other parts of this series where we cheer on our other favorite places to dine, or rather pick up curbside.

FINAL TIPS FOR LIVING BETTER with Food & Drink

1. Supporting side-lined local businesses and the decimated hospitality industry is critical while we wait out COVID-19. You can help them by picking up food to go. Order products from other local businesses as well.

2. Consuming specific types of seafood adds to a healthy diet during this time when it’s important to optimize well-being. Read my article on the 5 fish that have a whopping 250 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids and very low levels of mercury HERE.

3. This difficult time will end, hopefully soon. It’s critical to maintain the health of our most important relationships during times of stress. Fun date nights are still possible. Drive to your favorite restaurant and get food to go. Have a picnic at home or in a beautiful, secluded outdoor spot

4. Check on those who are unable to get out and deliver food to them.

5. Continue to adhere to all aspects of good personal hygiene and social parameters to limit the spread of COVID-19 virus.

CONCLUSION

Support your local dining establishments and other small businesses. Pick up food to go and order products locally if you’re able. Take care of your relationships. Get creative to make your date nights special. Cook together, plan a picnic in your living room, or secluded outdoor area. Have game night. Play a conversation game to keep up communication - the internet abounds with great ideas. And, of course, adhere to all aspects of good personal hygiene and social parameters to limit the COVID-19 virus.

YOUR TURN: How are you keeping your relationships vital during quarantine? Please share your ideas for date night on a car ride or at home. And if this post and your comments would help others - please share on social media. Thanks!

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2. Living Better Food & Drink: Fave Restaurant - The French Press

3. It's Time To Forget These Seven Nutrition Myths

4. Summer Hydration: What You Need to Know About the Safety of Bottled Water