First world problems: My Japanese food is too authentic

For some grad students it's ramen. For me it's pasta. The overabundance of pasta in my diet makes me especially picky about the occasional meals out. Especially Japanese food, which tends to have quite the dollar-to-calorie ratio. So I was really looking forward to an $8 (four-plus boxes of pasta) tuna sashimi and rice bowl, only to have it arrive completely drenched in a mix of grated yam and quail egg. I know that's what it is, because I've been unpleasantly surprised before. The texture is a bit like natto, which I actually like, but much, much stickier. Sticky is a problem for the finicky eater, because try as you might to push it aside or onto a plate you're no longer using (and, as an aside, thank god this was not on a first date) doesn't work, it just keeps oozing back, and has, it will soon become clear, already coated every single grain of rice, and every piece of otherwise perfect tuna.

The ridiculousness of the situation was made all the more so by the fact that this was the first time in a year I'd convinced my boyfriend to try Japanese food... and he liked all his dishes. Granted I steered him towards some more fully-cooked items, but still, I was the one who left wishing we'd gone with Belgian.