The other day, I went to a rotary sushi restaurant for lunch. Normally, when I go, I don’t actually eat a lot of sushi. They have an extensive dessert menu, including a wonderful creme brûlée. So of course, as a baker and a lover of sweets, I end up having one, and a cheesecake, and a crepe cake. Maybe I’ll even have a mochi ice cream if the weather is cooperating.

This time, however, was different: unlike the other times I had been (for both lunch and dinner), there were no desserts on the conveyer belt. I saw a lot of my favorites: tamago nigiri, the crab roll, and the seaweed salad (which, as of late, they have chosen to bastardize with cucumber at the bottom. Not to hate on cucumber of course, cucumber’s great. But when I want a seaweed salad, I am there for just the seaweed and nothing else).

Fortunately for me, each table at this restaurant has a tablet that makes a la carte ordering simple. I was sitting at our table for maybe 10 minutes before I ordered the creme brûlée – I’m sure our server was confused that I was choosing to order the dessert first. But there are 2 reasons for this.

First, I once had friends from Atlanta visit this restaurant, and they each tried a dessert to their taste (I recall at least 2 creme brûlées). All of them agreed that the desserts are better than the sushi there. Second, if the option to have dessert first presents itself, I see no reason why not to do it.

As I kept going to the sushi restaurant and ordering the dessert first, I learned a lesson about life: it’s important to go for what you want, even if it’s not always what’s normal or expected.