barracuda sushi

motivation: my legal counsel d and i were scheduled to do some business in the castro (ok, so we thought we'd have sushi before liverlist drinking at the lookout) and we spontaneously ran into sparky. he had just worked out and wanted the instant buzz that comes from a heavy sweat followed by immediate inebriation. he talked us into barracuda instead of daimaru, because they have sake bombs. my excuse for starting so quickly was that it was cold outside. we each did a shot and then chased those with more rice alcohol, warm, of course.

as we had initially intended to eat we eventually attacked the giant menu and narrowed down the options to a pink lady roll, a random veggie roll, barracuda roll, shiro maguro and hotate nigiri, edamame, chicken kushiyake (for d), trio seaweed salad (not for the sparkler), and some tasty grilled mushrooms. the quality was pretty good. the fish was respectably fresh but occasionally disappeared amidst the many other flavors. there was more to try but the free-flowing sake distracted me from the food. sorry. sparky says he eats there all the time and it's good (and they know him) so you can take that as a recommendation since i just basically got drunk.

i *was*, however, sober enough to notice 1) bizarre silent videos playing on the walls; 2) equally strange (unsynchronized) music playing--was it techno? was it punk? who knows; 3) the final bill--ouch. yes, barracuda is expensive, and sparky's connections were only useful for getting us the alcohol quickly. though the servers were very friendly and the girls definitely knew how to bring it on with the gay boys.

speaking of flirtability, even on a tuesday night the place was hoppin' with the well-coiffed castro crowd. i'd definitely come by again on a friday or saturday night and cruise the cuties. oh yeah, and eat some sushi. come join me?

itadakimasu!