Jackson's 1st sushi experience

For a while now Jackson has been asking to eat sushi.  This has been brought on by a couple of things. Ashely and I go out for sushi once a month or so and he's heard me talk about that.  There's also apparently an episode of Caillou where he eats sushi with his Asian friend, Sarah.  Since I really want to try and keep our kids out of food ruts (chicken nuggets and mac & cheese), I try to encourage him to eat, or at least try, different things.  The sushi thing was actually his idea, but I wasn't going to hold him back.  I picked up a pre-made roll at Trader Joe's the other day and he actually liked it!  I didn't have chopsticks for him, so he did miss out on the novelty part of it.  He's still been asking to go out for sushi, so last night we all met at Ashely's house and went over to Sushi Thai for his first authentic experience!  And guess what??  He loved it!  His favorites were the salmon on top of the San Francisco roll, which he called ham, and the Dragon roll with tempura shrimp, cucumbers and avocado.

As for Kate, both she and Jackson LOVE edamame so of course we started out with an order of that.  We also had some pork gyoza for an appetizer and while Jackson wasn't really a fan, Kate LOVED it!  We ordered just a side of rice for her, but she actually picked through some of the sushi pieces, too.

Here's a look at what we enjoyed...

I love this picture of Jackson!  Look at him work those chopsticks.  I should add that on his first piece he got frustrated with them and grabbed his fork, but after watching us eat, he decided to give them another try.  :-)

Check out Jackson's plate when he was finished!  I'd say there's no doubt that he enjoyed his first sushi experience!

Side note: Admittedly, Sean is not a fan of sushi.  He loves fish and all the other things that make up a sushi roll, but together, he seems to have an issue with the texture.  However, last night he decided to give it another try.  And he confirmed, once again, that it's just not his thing.  I think the pile of spicy tuna (that was mistakingly missing some sauce - probably b/c we ordered one of the other rolls without the spicy sauce for Jackson) was just too much for him.  So I guess Jackson will have to join us on girl's night if he wants to go out for sushi again.  That is, until Raleigh gets The Cowfish that is in talks.  ;-)