Best sushi in Denver... MORI. A tiny authentic restaurant buried within an old USO building downtown. Second best would have to be Sonoda's. They've the best scallops, ever. Having a craving... Best sushi in Austin was at the Korea House, IMO. Mushashino was good, but not as good. Best sushi in San Antonio... a little place off of Hildebrand called the Tokyo Inn, I believe. The first place I ever had sushi actually.

Korea house, I may have been there once if it's the place on Congress. You sit on floor cushions there?

No, that was something different. Korea House is over by the Village Cinema.

OH, ok, I usually go to that other place over there. They have vegetarian night two times a week. Great oriental buffet. Then over to Texpresso for a pickemup.

What Is Sushi? It's Not Raw Fish... Contrary to popular belief, the term sushi does not mean raw seafood. It actually refers to the specially flavored rice that accompanies vegetables or seafood. The common assumption that sushi is raw fish is a myth that everyone in the sushi industry - manufacturers and retailers alike - is trying to dispel.

Interesting... the name of the place I was groping for is Shanghai River, have you ever been there, anyone?

not I... This year Chronicle readers voted TIE: Korea House, Kyoto Runners-up: Musashino, Koreana Honorable mention: Tokyo Steak House, Seoul Restaurant and Sushi Bar, Buffet Palace and the Critics Poll picked Musashino

mushashino is delicious but really good and much less expensive is Korea House (IMHO!)

I like to swim with the dolphins in the Gulf. I stick my head in their mouth and they puke. now dolphin puke is very expensive in Korea. but it's free if you do it like me. but I don't think it's ever been called sushi. and I don't think the Gulf's ever been called a restaurant. there aren't any dolphins in the Gulf? oh. wait, I think there are. I hope this has been a helpful contribution to our delicious conversation

and here is an offering from the first Italian Sushi bar... (nope, it's not located in Austin) Rolled steamed escarole, maguro tuna with sundried tomato wasabi, chilled saffron risotto and leeks Rice paper rolled with yellow tail hamachi, saffron risotto, watercress, and balsamic wasabi Pressed smoked salmon, potato crisp, avocado puree and crisp leeks Pressed sweet water shrimp, basil risotto, gaeta olive wasabi Pressed maguro tuna with pesto mayonnaise, balsamic wasabi and white risotto

dophin vomit... hmmm. that seems as superfresh as it can get without having to kill the fish by yourself.

plus, the dolphin might spell out its tiredness and wonder out loud about what it's like to live on land it could be one more way to make a really new kinda friend the dolphin might say (telepathically) something about the moon above the cliffs it might have some thoughts on rice with fish and it might ask to be sent the experience fresh the experience, that is, of riding a mountain bike in the wide open yonder and it might "write" mind letters too about what it's like to live without having to have a job or without having to have Joe Black around

Hanover, Germany -- A restaurant that has decided to use nude women as platters has generated both revenue and controversy here. The owner of the unidentified restaurant -- written up in Bild, a German newspaper, said the women earn up to 800 marks, or US$500, a night for lying motionless on a table, wearing only veils on their faces and a "thin floral decoration" between their legs, wile diners feast on sushi piled on the "platters." Sushi and caviar are placed on the women's bodies while bodyguards dressed like samurai warriors stand nearby to make sure diners touch only the food. A women's group is protesting the restaurant's unique sushi meals, calling them "tasteless." So far, the restaurant's owner is ignoring the protests, preferring to focus on the popularity of the special dinner. He was quoted in Bild as saying the dinner, called "sushi a la Jungfrau," is booked out weeks in advance, even at a cost of about 400 marks per person. Compiled by Paul King

Tasteless!! ha-ha!! The Germans are fine ones to talk about tasteless. They wouldn't know the meaning of the word 'taste' if it had subtitles! Silly buggers. I don't like sushi - tastes like unsalted jelly worms to me.

I have never eaten sushi. I suppose I'll get around to it, eventually.

Let us know what you thought!

I will. I'm pretty sure that ill like it though. I like vietnamese food and their salads contain some raw seafood.

That is I'll like it.

I didn't know sushi was a vietnamese dish - is that how it came to be known in America; you know, through the war?

yes and no. American military men went to Japan for R and R in both the korean and vietnam wars. sushi is of japanese origin.

I see. You weren't in the war though, were you? Do you know anybody who was?

I went to Thailand during the Vietnam war. that was as close to a war zone as I ever got. I went there to meet my uncle who was on R and R there. I was almost 12. The summer of 67. June. He was a fighter pilot on the USS Constellation. On the way home they stopped me in Hawaii, so that I could accompany his body the rest of the way home. He was killed 10 hours after he left Thailand. Another uncle was on Corregador when it fell in WWII. He was in on the Bataan death march. He survived the war, but never completely recovered, he died when I was seven.

My God, I'm so sorry.

There is nothing to be sorry about. Death is the risk you take joining the military. I declined to enter that war. Caught all kinds of hell about it. Volunteered to accompany the first B-52 mission carrying nukes, they shut up. I actually volunteered for desert storm, along with all of my desert rat friends from OPFOR. They turned us down, all of us. 175 desert rats, trained in the weapons that Iraq was using, actual weapons instructors, absolute experts in desert survival. We'd have been in Bagdad in a week, tops. Nobody could have stopped us. They knew it, and we knew it.

Well, I'm glad you weren't in any wars. No country is that great that husbands, fathers, brothers and sons have to die for it - they're people, not expendable automatons.

I wish that the world was full of people like you and that it was like that 100 years ago also. At the very least I wish the leadership of every country was like that.

My granddad was like that. He had to fight for UNITA against Angola (his country of birth), but always carried an unloaded gun. He said he never wanted to be in a position where he was the killer; he would rather be the dead man than the man to take a father away from his children.

What's UNITA Ree? Funny Sushi commercial with Doug Flutie and Terry Bradshaw, it plays on guytype biases against tiny raw fish, "we call this bait".