Sushi Zushi & 20Nine

I took my brother out to eat at Sushi Zushi yesterday.  I've only been about 3 or 4 times prior but I enjoy it there.  Very nice, clean and modern place.  Normally I get a couple of sushi rolls but I've been trying to get out of eating the same thing at the same places.  So instead, I ordered:

• Soft Shell Crab Kara-agge; OK, but won't order again since I felt like I kept eating a piece of shell
• Chicken Yakisobi with Udon noodles; very good, udon noodles are just thicker noodles
• Beef Yakitori; decent; tasted like small pieces of steak and was a little tough
• Gyoza; a dumpling of sorts - delicious
• Tempura Ice cream (vanilla, not green tea flavor); delicious but next time I'll try green tea ice cream
• Pomegranate Iced Tea

I was desperately wishing I wouldn't like any of the food just so I didn't have to eat it... you know, with my supposed "diet" and all.  But the only thing I didn't eat much of was the fried crab.

Thankfully my brother, being the guy that he is, ate most of the food we ordered. I can safely say I at least tasted/sampled each plate but didn't eat as much compared to him.  I feel a little guilty since he is [was] on a diet himself.  Why is he on a diet? Not quite sure since he's slender... I assumed he'd wanna build muscle, not lose weight. But what do I know? I can hardly take care of my own body... I'm not going to try to tell someone else how to handle theirs.

After dinner, I figured we were on our way home but my brother decided to stop by a wine bar called 20Nine.  Very quaint, cozy, friendly place... we [JJ] wanted to sit at the bar and we each ordered something called  a "Road Trip" which consisted of 3 different wines from the same family.  I had Merlot and my brother had Pinot (both are red wines).  Out of the 3 glasses I had, the best was Ferrari-Carano, Sonoma County '04.  The wine descriptions sounded tastier then they were...but I still believe red wine is more of an acquired taste.  I decided to order a Jacobi Riesling (white wine) which was a little sweeter than I'm used to but it was delicious.