Ebi Sushi @ Ignite!

Juan preparing onigiri

Even though there's been a sign on Ebi Sushi's door for tonight's Ignite! A Fire and Street Food Festival After Dark, I hadn't bothered to read it, so I had no idea it was happening. I was surprised when I got to Ebi Sushi for dinner and Chiki-san and Juan were preparing salmon and spicy salmon onigiri, which isn't on their menu. I asked Chiki-san what they were doing and he gestured across the street and said it was for the food festival.

I was too hungry to wait for Ignite! to start at 6pm, so I ate dinner:

Chicken Teriyaki Donburi - $9.95

After dinner I headed across the street. Many Union Square restaurants participated, but Ebi Sushi was the only East Asian presence. Indian food was heavily represented (3 restaurants including Dosa-n-Curry and India Palace). The rest was a mix including Neighborhood Restaurant, CasaB, Cantina la Mexicana. Unfortunately a number of the restaurants didn't have signs on their booths or have their staff in restaurant t-shirts, so I'm not sure about all the restaurants who were there.

Ebi Sushi was serving California rolls, gyoza, onigiri, shumai, seaweed salad, tatsuta age, and chicken teriyaki, which they prepared at the restaurant and then ran across the street. Owner José Garcia discovered that the downside to not preparing food onsite or having food in warmers as other restaurants were doing is that the aromas can't entice people to your booth. The upsides are fast service (since you don't have to dish up the food) and not having to worry about the health inspector, who was making his rounds and spending a lot of time at some booths. I was a little sketched out that one of the restaurants had beer coolers full of their curry (no liners or anything) and were spooning it from there to the warmers. But since they were still serving I guess they passed.

Owner José Garcia with regular customer Ko-san

Unfortunately, I was fully stuffed from dinner, but I did get to have a piece of my friend's beef skewer from Pão de Açucar Market which was delicious and I picked up a maple bacon donut (pricey at $3.50) from Union Square Donuts. I love maple, bacon, and donuts, but sadly it didn't wow me. I'm intrigued by some of their other flavors, so I'll have to go check out the shop.

I couldn't stick around for the performance part of the evening which is too bad. I'm sure it was awesome.