Domo Arigato

Recently I had lunch with a Japanese producer. We went to K-Zo, my favorite sushi restaurant in Culver City. The minute we walked in, the producer, Tommo, started jabbering away with the head chef as if they were secret members of the Yakuza.

Tommo suggested that instead of ordering from the menu it would be more fun and adventurous to let the chef serve us what he deemed to be his best fish of the day. Apparently this is customary in Japan.

(I don't see that catching on in New Jersey. "You, gonna order for me? Fuhhhgeddaboutit.")

Not wanting to offend, I agreed. And dined on an eclectic collection of slimy, chewy, smelly fish I had never seen, with names I had never heard. I am convinced these were new species found only in the deepest, darkest trenches of the Mariannas.

It was about as foul an eating experience as one could possibly imagine.

But even so, it does not compare with the visceral ugliness of biting into a soft, ripe banana and discovering a hard, vein-like nub, wedged between your teeth.

We can put a man on the moon and genetically engineer watermelons without seeds, can the folks at Chiquita please start applying themselves and put nub-free bananas on our dining tables?