One of my favourite blogs is “1 dish 4 the road” by Aaron Vallance and when he mentioned on Twitter that his 10 year old son Ben had submitted his fist ever piece of food writing to a food writing competition, I offered to pay Ben his first writers commission ($5) in order to publish his work here.
“Hi, I am Ben – thank you so much Nikki for this opportunity to share my ‘sushi’ piece. I initially wrote it for the ‘Young Food Writer of The Year’ (10’s & Under) competition, based on memories of my first ever sushi. I love writing about my favourite foods, such as this other one on making meringues. Enjoy!”
In our family, we have a tradition – every birthday we choose a special restaurant. Usually I’d always go for a different place each year. That is until I found sushi…
It was my 7th birthday. At that time, I was really into anime, and so I had the idea of trying Japanese food. When the day finally came, we caught a train, and made our way to a place called Sticks & Sushi.
Pushing the door open, I could instantly smell the luscious flavour of rice boiling and soup simmering. A waitress sat us down, and gave us a menu full of photos of fascinating dishes.
When the food arrived, I exploded into excitement, my mouth watering. My dad pointed to a ‘maki-roll’. It had salmon inside, encircled with rice, and then a layer of seaweed. I popped it inside my mouth.
The flavour combinations were exquisite. The soy-sauce was rich and salty, the rice gave a mellow flavour and the salmon tasted of the sea. All of the components accompanied each other perfectly – it was like they were meant to be together all this time.
Instead of knives and forks, we used chopsticks to eat. To be honest, I found it really tricky, so we ordered some kids’ ones instead: these were much easier, and really fun!
Overall, I rated the sushi ‘10/10’. It was unbelievable! My mouth craved for more. And ever since, sushi has always been my number one
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There are 9 Sticks & Sushi restaurants in the UK
A British Girl Abroad 
Thanks so much again for this, Nikki. Such a wonderful gesture, and Ben is really chuffed. x
Ahhhh I’m so pleased!
A really evocative, sensory piece of writing Benjamin. I feel like I was enjoying the maki roll with you. Well done!