There's a really good sushi restaurant in Atlanta called Zuma.
Tucked away on the bottom floor of a brick apartment complex in the Inman Park area of the city, the place can rightly claim to serve fish that's fresher than any establishment a couple of hundred miles from the nearest ocean deserves. The food is always fantastic, the sake is plentiful and exceptional, and the atmosphere -- all deep woods and subdued lighting -- is nothing short of seductive.
Zuma is owned by a Korean couple, Richard and Gina, who emigrated to America not more than a decade ago and who built the restaurant -- their dream -- from the ground up. Back in 2004, when Zuma first opened its doors, Jayne and I were some of the first people to discover this hidden gem and we quickly became good friends with its proprieters, immediately playing the role of their eager publicists -- sending anyone and everyone who would listen to our favorite new sushi spot. As time went by, we even began hanging out with Richard and Gina, that relationship culminating in one very drunken night at a local karaoke bar, where we discovered that Richard could do a mean, if not flat-out hilarious, impression of Frank Sinatra (had Sinatra been Korean).
After leaving Atlanta in early 2005, I thought quite a bit about the many good friends we left behind, especially Richard and Gina, who I always warily understood had undertaken a daunting venture by opening a restaurant of their own.
Most big city restaurants fail within the first year.
Today, I drove through Inman Park in Atlanta -- and Zuma is still there.
For some reason, this fills me with both incredible joy and overwhelming sadness.
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