Sushi deficiency

Torsten and I went out for sushi last night with some friends of ours that we don't see often enough. We tried a new sushi place downtown, because I am still on a quest for the perfect DC sushi restaurant. Unfortunately, even though we had a great time with our friends, last time's restaurant did not fit the bill. The quest continues.

I've lived in DC for more than two years, and I have yet to find a great sushi restaurant here. The weirdest part is that I don't even think I'm that picky about sushi. I like basic sushi from pretty much any restaurant, and I will even eat the sushi that comes in the little plastic box at the grocery store. I love sushi THAT MUCH.

But I do like GREAT sushi the best, obviously. And I've been to some great sushi restaurants--one near my parents' house in North Carolina, one in Chicago, one in the Massachusetts town where I went to college, several in New York. The things that separate the great from the merely fine are very fresh fish, a good fish-to-rice ratio, and interesting rolls that you can't find anywhere else. These things are not THAT complicated, right?

So why is it that DC, the capital of the country, a renowned and very international city, is totally lacking in excellent sushi? I have tried so many places, including all the places that are recommended as the best in the city, and every one has been a disappointment. There are a couple that come close, but only until I go back to one of the legitimately great sushi places I mentioned earlier, and then I realize that the DC places pale in comparison.

I find this to be an enormous defect of this city. And it's not just sushi restaurants. It's restaurants in general. There are plenty of restaurants here, and a lot of them are decent. Some of them are even downright good, but none of them is GREAT. None of them totally blows you away. That's part of why we struggled to figure out where to hold our rehearsal dinner--there just isn't that standout spot, that automatic place.

New York, obviously, is full of amazing restaurants on every block. San Francisco, LA, and Chicago have similarly excellent places to eat. When we went to Chicago for one weekend in March, we went to more great restaurants than we have visited in DC over the entire course of our time living here. It just doesn't make sense. This place is supposed to be cosmopolitan and diverse, and it has lots of people with plenty of discretionary income. It seems like a target market for a plethora of great restaurants. And it's just totally lacking.

Plus, don't even get me started on the shopping, or lack thereof, in this city. I am not a huge shopper, and I don't spend tons of money. But when I do need to buy something, such as near the holidays, or when I've lost more weight and need new clothes, I wish there were somewhere I could go other than one of the suburban malls. It's the same with restaurants, though. We don't eat out that often, but that's all the more reason why there should be great places for us to go when we do.

I mean, maybe it's us. Maybe we just don't know the right places to go, and everyone else in this city is off glorying in fun little boutiques between courses of mind-blowing sushi. But somehow I doubt it.

So tell me, even if you love the town where you live, what is the one thing you find lacking about it? What's the one thing you miss about somewhere you've lived in the past?