Best Wet Sushi?
Sorry, but we have to take strong exception to the recommendation that O.E.She is the Best Strip-Mall Japanese Restaurant in these parts [Best of Seattle, “Food & Drink: Critics’ Picks,” Aug. 2]. Please! Trusting in your critic’s recommendation, we decided to give O.E.She a try, and were sorely disappointed. Out of four stars, we would give it one, maybe. The sushi was poorly prepared and too wet (eww!), and the teriyaki was close to being inedible. Clearly, we are not inclined to even give it a second chance.
However, we would point your readers to the heavyweight contender in this category, which is Sushi In Joy in Bellevue. While it’s not convenient to those just finishing a shopping trip at the Target store in Factoria, it is close to anyone just finishing up at Bellevue Square or Lincoln Square. We have been eating there regularly for six or seven years, and have never been disappointed. The sushi has been consistently excellent, and the food is of high quality. It is a bit more expensive than O.E.She, but it’s also worth three stars (out of four).
It resides in a small strip mall north of Bellevue Square, at 2618 Bellevue Way N.E., just south of the QFC grocery store. The service there is warm and friendly, certainly not what you would expect to find in such an unlikely location.
Joanne and Giles Bohannon
Bellevue
Icky Eyman
Best Activist/Hell-Raiser—Tim Eyman?!?! [Best of Seattle, “People, Politics & Media: Readers’ Picks,” Aug. 2.] What a slap in the face to your political writers. Who is reading your rag, anyway? I wouldn’t be surprised if you lose advertisers over that one!
Steve Rodriguez
Seattle
Worst Croissants
Re Best Local Bakery [Best of Seattle, “Food & Drink: Readers’ Picks,” Aug. 2]: “For being such a health-conscious city, it’s funny how passionate Seattleites are about their bakeries.”
People in this town wouldn’t know a good bakery if it ran up and kicked them in the goolies.
P.S. Stop overbaking your croissants and pastries, you idiots!
Andrew Osborne
Seattle
The “rational”—and also practical—solution to the marriage debate [Mossback, “Divorced From Reality,” Aug. 2] is to legalize civil unions for partners of any gender combination such that any civil union, heterosexual or otherwise, confers the same legal rights.
By virtue of freedom of religion, declare “marriage” a religious word, one the state has no authority over. It’s pretty obvious, right? When we talk about the “sanctity” of anything, it really shouldn’t be subject to governmental oversight. Marriage, as an emotionally laden buzzword, then becomes the domain of emotionally laden religious choices, and people can sort it out among themselves and self-select into communities that honor the choices they want to make.
Thus separating “marriage” from the legal discourse, we make it possible to have a rational legal approach to partnership law.
L. Blunt Jackson
Seattle
Quiet Riots
As I read our state Supreme Court’s decision to deny the GLBTIQ community our basic civil rights, I asked myself, “Where is the rage?” [Mossback, “Divorced From Reality,” Aug. 2.]
Imagine if heterosexuals suddenly found themselves in the same legal position; they would be rioting in the streets!
My little delusional head wants to imagine a country where all GLBTIQ folk refuse to pay taxes, write “Marriage Equality Now” on all currency, and boycott attending and planning all wedding services (since we are largely involved in the music, flowers, catering, ceremony, etc.).
John Bisceglia
Bellingham
Sheriff’s Blame Game
I was discouraged to learn that Sheriff Sue Rahr has filed a complaint against the Seattle Post-Intelligencer with the Washington News Council for the P-I‘s yearlong series “Conduct Unbecoming” [“The Sheriff Fires at the Seattle P-I,” Aug. 2]. Discouraged and amused, in that head-shaking “I don’t believe it” kind of way. The humor in this comes from Rahr’s allegation that the P-I‘s reporting is unfair and lacking in balance, while simultaneously acknowledging she has refused to speak to the reporters since last fall. This finally explains the “no comment” and “didn’t return phone calls” responses from the sheriff’s department that were printed over and over in the P-I articles. It does, however, beg an oh-so-obvious question: If Rahr wished the reporting to be more balanced, perhaps she and the department could have participated in the dialogue when given so many opportunities to do so, and thus provided us with another perspective. Another source of amusement is to know how nice it is for Rahr to have someplace outside of the P-I‘s jurisdiction to take her complaint, so she can be assured a fair hearing. It is too bad the numerous citizens outlined in the news articles with complaints against the sheriff’s department didn’t have the chance for a similar opportunity.
However, as amusing as this is, I am mostly discouraged. The King County Sheriff’s Office has been exposed as an agency with a culture in serious need of reform—one that is lacking in accountability, responsibility, good communication skills, and, perhaps, honesty. There is little hope that the sheriff’s department will be able to acquire these skills and move forward unless it is led by a sheriff who is able to model these qualities. Playing the “blame game” is not an example of good modeling. (According to Rahr, it is the exposure of the problems within the sheriff’s department that is to blame for the public’s eroding trust, and not the problems themselves.) Nor is making blanket statements denying the existence of problems, in the face of strong evidence to the contrary. Nothing can erode trust faster than this stance. (Think: “We are making great progress in Iraq” and “There is no such thing as global warming.”)
It would be so refreshing if Sheriff Rahr could demonstrate to the public that she has the graciousness and integrity to accept responsibility for mistakes made by her department, the backbone to lead this department in a new direction, and the toughness to withstand the resistance she will encounter from within some of her own rank and file. Thinking of this, I am, once again, discouraged and amused, this time in a “no way—ain’t gonna happen” kind of way. So far, there have been no signs of life in this direction.
Alana Sorem
Mountlake Terrace
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