One sick day in first grade, I stayed home and watched an episode of Doug on Nickelodeon about sushi’s unappetizing rawness. That was my first time introduction to this Japanese culinary delight. In recent years, sushi has assimilated into the mainstream. Phillips Academy, with its cosmopolitan student body, has not been left out of the sushi craze. A representative from Mootone, a sushi restaurant in Andover, stated that, “Just based on what I feel, it seems like more people are ordering, but the average ticket price is down a bit. It used to be that a few people ordered a lot. Now there are more people ordering.” Peggy, an employee at Yama, another sushi place in town, agreed that she certainly saw an increase in the amount of people coming for sushi. According to Peggy, students are just as apt as adults to order larger meals. Khaki Burke ’06 said, “I think sushi should come with fries. There should have sushi extra value meals with like, thirty pieces instead of five.” A fellow sushi-supporter in the student body is Diana Wilson ’07 who said, “I like it a lot it’s really good, I eat a lot more of it than most people do, I had sushi for dinner tonight, I had like four rolls, is that weird?” Some members of the PA community are fans of sushi, but not necessarily of Andover’s sushi. According to Zack Feldman ’08, “It’s delicious but expensive,” and, “the quality of sushi in downtown Andover is not exactly up to par.” Some, however, remained unconvinced. Malik Jenkins ’09, firmly said, “I hate [sushi], it’s gross, that’s all I’ve got to say.” Most Andover students seem to have welcomed sushi as a mainstay in their diets. Though perhaps too expensive to take the place of Golden Chopsticks as PA’s go-to takeout choice, Andover sushi restaurants certainly have found a niche at PA.
