Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is recovering nicely from celebrating the coming of the new year last night.  I got all glammed up (or more accurately was glammed up by this lady) and went out with a few close friends in Annapolis.  We started out with dinner at Tsunami, which aside from still having reservations when I checked Open Table the night before New Year's Eve, has delicious cocktails and pretty amazing fries.  In fact I basically go there for the cocktails and fries alone, those and the watermelon salad, with it's pine nuts, feta, and mint, all drizzled with a balsamic reduction, which was sadly not on the menu last night, perhaps because it is winter and watermelons aren't known for their affinity for snowy weather.  Tsunami seems to me like one of those places that are going for the trendy feel but the actual trendy people don't go there, which I have no idea if that is true or not, not being one of the trendy people of Annapolis myself.  Anyways, I have never ordered what they call "main tastes," but I have sampled dishes from every other category, the first and second tastes, sides and sushi.  And the cocktails of course.  I love a good cocktail and these don't disappoint.  Be warned though, just about everything on the menu has some sort of fusion twist, which can be quite tasty, like the smoked chili aioli that comes with the fries, but can sometimes seem just a bit forced, fusion for the sake of being considered fusion and not because it is an innovation on the dish that takes it to a new and better place.  Not to sound like a food snob or anything.

The baby spinach salad I had last night was quite tasty although the picture doesn't quite do it justice.  The spiced cashews on top were my favorite part.  Between the 6 of us we also ordered quite a selection of sushi, which by my uneducated sushi palate was very decent.  Then of course there were the fries, of which I could not even get a decent picture before they were completely devoured.  We alternated between raving about them and inhaling them, going on about the perfect amount of chunky sea salt one minute and then chowing down the next.  All in all, it is not a bad place to pop in for a drink or a bite if you are downtown.