DINING

Sumo’s Hibachi room is always lively (Photo: Ash Bailot)

Sumo Comes Out A Winner

By Henry Stark

Ind reviewing Japanese restaurants a challenge. I always choose raw sh— usually Sushi or Sashimi—and frankly, I’m unable to di erentiate a cold, fresh, unseasoned, uncooked slice of tuna in one restaurant from a cold, fresh, unseasoned, uncooked slice of tuna in another.

So I have established several of my own personal criteria when eating at Japanese restaurants. First and foremost: is the raw sh kept cold? en, does it look fresh when served? I watch the slicers, dicers and preparers work their magic behind an open Sushi bar and it’s not beyond me to put my hand on the glass display case to see if it’s cold.

Sumo always comes out a winner. e raw sh is fresh and cold and looks and tastes wonderful and the presentations brought to the table are invariably attractive.

I always order the soup, which is included, rather than the salad, also included, as it seems healthy with seaweed, scallions, and tofu and comes in a generous portion in a small bowl.

At Sumo, I eschew the “Sashimi Regular”, 15 pieces for $23.95 for the “Sashimi Deluxe”, 19 pieces for $25.95. e extra four pieces of raw sh for $2 seems like a bargain. e presentation is very attractive and features tuna, salmon and six other types of sh stacked in individual groups of two, three and four and garnished with bits of small parsley, green leaves, and ample portions of grated horseradish, and pickled ginger.

Sushi is available in o erings for one or two people. “Sushi for 2” came with literally a boatload (wood platter) of 10 pieces of sushi plus 18 pieces of sashimi and assorted veggie rolls. “ e Love Boat for 2” ($58.95) is amazing. Have your camera handy when it’s delivered to your table and enjoy a lot of variety. If you’d prefer a smaller portion, there are more than 60 various rolls, cooked and uncooked to choose from $6.25 to $16.95.

If raw sh isn’t your thing, there are eight Teriyaki dishes and ve Tempuras to choose from. In addition, you can select from the Donburi section of a half dozen o erings from $14.50 to $15.95. If you’re not familiar with Donburi, is a bowl lled with steamed white rice topped with vegetables, meat, or seafood. In Japan It’s meant to be a full meal. If you prefer noodles to rice, there are eight dinners featuring noodles ($14.50-$19.95). ere are also a gazillion Hibachi Dinners.

Hibachi entrées that are prepared in the Hibachi rooms are also available at the booths and tables in the main dining areas. ere are too many, 29, to describe, (Eight dinners $18.99 to $32.99 served with soup or house salad, fried rice, and a vegetable and an additional 21 more Hibachi dinner combos $24.99 to $40.99). e Hibachi Chicken & Shrimp Combo ($24.99) was ne. It arrived with eight medium grilled shrimp and some tender diced chicken and bits of onions, mushrooms, carrots, and zucchini all in a pleasant brown sauce. e Tempuras are a huge disappointment. e only thing I liked about the Seafood & Vegetable Tempura ($22.95) was the artful arrangement when it arrived at the table. Six heavily breaded shrimp were stacked in a pyramid atop two crab legs, a heavily breaded onion ring, and some heavily breaded broccoli, butternut squash, and sliced sweet potatoes. e breading was so thick and oily I tried to pick it o with my hands in order to get to the seafood and veggies.

Shrimp Teriyaki ($19.95) was tasty and pleasant. ere were 10 medium shrimp mixed in with some broccoli and small bits of mushrooms, and onions.

I enjoy eating at Sumo – except it can be extremely noisy. e walls are fashioned out of an unforgiving hard vinyl tile and the Hibachi rooms are invariably raucous.

Tid Bit: Plenty of o -street parking and comfortable, clean restrooms.

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Vital for Life ADVERSE FOODS FOR THE ELDERLY

Food is a source of enjoyment for people of all ages, and the idea of giving up any favorite or healthy food may seem confusing. The elderly are particularly susceptible to having reactions to certain foods that, at one time, they were able to eat without any issues. As people age, it gets harder for their bodies to fight off certain food-borne infections. Uncooked or lightly cooked foods such as sushi, ceviche, and steak tartare may increase a senior’s risk of contracting food poisoning. Soft cheeses including Brie, Camembert, and Blue may also cause adverse effects. It’s also important to avoid raw eggs, such as in Hollandaise sauce. Additionally, any foods that contain undercooked eggs should be avoided. From preparing nutritious meals to making healthy lifestyle choices, seniors may need assistance with an array of tasks. Some seniors only require help with a few daily tasks so they can maintain their independence. However, those living with serious illnesses may need more extensive assistance. Call the marketing team at (607) 2665300 to schedule a tour to see our facilities and learn more about lifecare at Kendal at Ithaca. Find us on the web at http://kai.kendal.org/ P.S. Bananas are good food choices for seniors since they have been known to relieve symptoms of anxiety and depression.

which made him feel tentative in the early stages of illustrating Beorn. It was not until he heard animator Erik Larson say he utilized certain aspects of individual styles in the creation of his own style that Bender came to terms with the fact that such a concept is truly unattainable.

“I learned that it’s not gonna matter how I draw,” he said. “People are still gonna make those comparisons. So I may as well just kind of stop ghting it and just draw.” e story of Beorn: e Littlest Viking is one about a small warrior that believes he is destined for greatness who receives a map from a stranger before embarking on an adventure full of myths, legends, gods, heroes, monsters, fantastical creatures, and more.

“For me, it’s about the kind of relationships that he forms and the impacts and interactions that he has with the people that he meets along the way,” he said. “So still very keeping to its roots of sort of a slice of life newspaper comic strip. It just happens to have this running epic adventure going on behind it.”

Despite the adorable depictions of characters and the sense of light-heartedness in the story’s spirit, there are moments of violence and horror along the way, something that Bender said was important for him to include in the book. One of his biggest artistic in uences is Jim Henson, creator of e Muppets and director of fantasy lms e Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, who emphasized that children should be scared and that it is okay to do so.

“My takeaway from it was the sense of like, it’s okay to scare them so that they can

learn why it’s okay to be scared but also how it’s going to work out okay through the story, through the narrative,” Bender said. “And so when I was writing Beorn, there are things in it sometimes where I wanted people to feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, is he gonna make it?’” One example from the book is in the second chapter where one of the characters carves one of his eyes out and casts it into a well, though Bender does not illustrate the gorey act itself. “I didn’t show him cutting his eye out, but I showed everything in between where you see him holding the knife up to his eye and then the very next panel is this disembodied, this removed eye being Ben Bender’s Beorn: The Littlest tossed across the panel Viking has been compared to right before it plops into the Calvin and Hobbes and Asterix and Obelix (Photo: Provided) well,” he said. Bender said he feels a sense of responsibility as the author to include scenes like these in the book for the sake of the audience as well as himself. He said he received a lot of feedback from parents saying that they loved it and enjoyed reading it together with their child. “I have a three-year-old and honestly, if she were four, I’d [probably] let her see it,” he said. “If she were six, I’d [de nitely] let her see it. But I know not everybody would, and I had to start balancing what I really thought was necessary for the story and what was the best way to kind of show that darkness, that danger. Was it showing a chopped out eyeball, or was there some way to do it narratively?” “Some of the things that I had written took on that lens of, is it essential to show that…or can I hint at it, in some way that maybe really subtle? Sometimes it is just visually scary because it needs to be visually scary’” ose interested in learning more about Beorn: e Littlest Viking can visit thelittlestviking.com

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Art Alexakis and Everclear forswear prerecorded tracks (Photo: Provided)

Alexakis Likes To Have Fun

By Bryan VanCampen

Everclear’s Art Alexakis is very clear about one thing: he likes to have fun, and right now, making albums doesn’t sound like fun. He’s happy enough playing his hits and sticking to rock and roll. Everclear, whose 90’s and 00’s hits included “Father of Mine”, “Santa Monica” and “I Will Buy You a New Life”, comes to Hammondsport on July 16 for a 30th anniversary show with opening acts Fastball (“ e Way”) and e Nixons.

IT: I was a DJ and worked at Sam Goody in the 90’s so I was de nitely there for that rst wave of Everclear.

AA: Well now, how long were you at Sam Goody?

IT: ‘Til the retail industry basically imploded.

AA: Like 2000, 2001?

IT: When customers said, “I’ll just order it online,” I said, “ at’s the end.”

AA: “ at’s the end of that, man,” I remember that, man. I was trying to tell people in the industry that they were gonna win in their ght against Sean Napster [Parker]. I’m like, “You need to take what he’s got and gure out a way to monetize it. Do you really think people are gonna say no to free music?” [laughs] Come on. at was stupid. It’s funny – I grew up always wanting to work in a record store. When I became 17, I started working in a record store in California called Licorice Pizza.

IT: e movie!

AA: Yeah. And there was Licorice Pizza Warehouse; there was all these other stores. Sam Goody was a thing back East. But of course, there was Tower Records. [ at] wasn’t near where I lived, I had to take four buses to get to Tower Records on the Sunset Strip. Ouch. at took a lot of work.

IT: is is Everclear’s 30th anniversary. AA: is is my life’s work.

IT: I love what you did with the Summerland tours, bringing back bands like Fastball, who you’re bringing to Hammondsport.

AA: Well, because I love Fastball. I think they’re a f**king great band. I like the Nixons a lot. ey’re bands that don’t play with [pre-recorded] tracks. We’re three bands that don’t use auxiliary tracks and Pro Tools. We’re a rock and roll band. Just go up there and play. Y’know? And that’s important to me, because we’re becoming kind of a rarity, you know. Bands that you would think would just be balls to the wall, old school rock bands are using tracks and Pro Tools and stu like that. To me, it feels like older people getting shots in their face, and getting work done. As we call it on the West Coast, “getting work done” on their face, because they feel, y’know, they’re getting older. ey don’t want their granny panties to show. You get what you get with me. at’s the way I look at my music as well. We’re playing our music.

IT: I’m not familiar with e Nixons.

AA: e Nixons came up in the Dallas music scene. Deep Blue Something, there were a bunch of bands that that got signed and had success out of that Dallas scene of the early-mid 90’s. And even though e Nixons are from Oklahoma, that’s the scene they broke in with, Dallas. ey had one hit that was kinda big in radio called “Sister”. ey kinda sounded like a grunge band. ey kinda sounded like that early Seattle scene, y’know, with a little bit of Americana thrown in there. But they’re not American like Fastball. I f**kin’ love Fastball so much. I mean, you can call it what you want, call it 90’s stu or whatever works for you, that’s cool. But to me, Bryan, it’s rock and roll, and I f**king love rock and roll. Each 90 minute session includes regular talk therapy added to a treatment of sound or sound/light. You decide what you want your brain to do and when, and the treatment facilitates it. It lessens depression and anxiety. Helps you grieve. Increases focus, concentration and and improves creativity... and much more.

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