Beer, meet sake

So what do you do on a Saturday night after you've turned your back on a beautiful Santa Cruz day in favour of working and doing your washing?


You hit the town with your American buddies!!


Val and Mike had kindly invited me to join them at MoBo Sushi, which is pretty much agreed to be the best among Santa Cruz's many joints of the Japanese raw fish persuasion. I'd been there last year and enjoyed it, but Val and Mike promised mysterious drink theatricals unique to Saturday nights.


Fascinated, I joined my friends and we shared some amazing sushi. Santa Cruz sushi is a kind of fusion - it can incorporate everything from herbs to nuts in addition to the regular fish and vegetables. Mike ordered this amazing variety that was covered in warm pineapple.


Mike had refused to elaborate on the drink theatricals, merely stating expansively that we would "let events unfold". Things really became intruiging when the following was set up at the bar:

The glasses were full of beer and set in a "U" shape around the bar, and shot glasses of sake were balanced on top. Apparently we were a bit short-changed this evening, as there were only 80 glasses of beer. It's supposed to be 100. Anyway, the magnaminous owner gathered us around and good naturedly explained that, by law, Californian establishments cannot give away alcohol, but for the price of a penny and a valid I.D., we could get amongst the action.

He then entreated us to count him down, and from the far end of the bar he set a domino effect in motion. Before you could blink, each shot glass of sake dropped neatly into each beer glass. The bar was then mobbed by patrons waving I.D.s and receiving a free sake-beer.

Here are Val and Mike enjoying theirs.

My Aussie drivers' licence attracted some good-natured interest, but in the end I too was able to partake:

And I was relieved to find that the shot glass had survived its domino stunt:

Afterwards, we walked off our beer-sakes on Pacific Ave, and were having such a good time that we spontaneously decided to take in a show (that's a movie for the Aussies) at the Regal:

We saw "Thor". It was different to what I had been expecting and I really enjoyed it. Just some random quotes, because it's my blog and I can:

"This drink, I like it. Another!" (smashes the cup down)

"We drank, we fought, he made his ancestors proud!"

"Hey, we've got Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood here... oh, and some Lord Of The Rings looking dude headed your way.... "

"You better call it, Coulson, cause I'm starting to root for this guy"

Thanks Val and Mike for a night of great company and great fun!