A review of the best sushi spots in the Lou

Published: Panorama, April 20, 2017

About: I’ve always enjoyed writing reviews, whether they be about food or film. While my forte is objective reporting, I take pleasure in the rare opportunity to share my own opinion. For this story, Panorama paid for me to eat sushi three nights in a row! It doesn’t get better than that.

Story: Wasabi Sushi Bar: The first stop on my sushi adventure was Wasabi Sushi Bar located on Manchester Road. As I walked into the restaurant, I was impressed by the charming ambience; I immediately noticed the wooden floors and darkly painted walls with matching chairs. As I opened the extensive menu, I decide to order the caterpillar roll filled with unagi, shrimp, cucumber and avocado for $11. I also tried the Clayton roll and an avocado roll. The service was fast, and the waiters were nice. When the food arrived, I was excited to dig into my first roll. Wasabi’s caterpillar roll did not let me down. The perfect combination of eel and shrimp was balanced out by the cucumber and avocado, and I immediately scarfed down all eight pieces. The eel and shrimp were cooked to perfection, which is a difficult task to achieve. Not only was the roll delicious to eat, but it was also plated with expertise. Thin slices of avocado were placed on top of the rise to add a unique texture to the roll. I give Wasabi Sushi Bar five stars.

I Love Mr. Sushi: After going to Wasabi, I went to I love Mr. Sushi on Olive Boulevard. Upon entering, I was definitely less impressed than I was when I walked into Wasabi. From a visual aspect, the restaurant is much less appealing, and it seemed as though it had not been updated in decades. However, the menu is much bigger and has a wide variety of options; there is something for every type of sushi fanatic. Feeling bolder than I had the night before, I decided on a pizza roll. The pizza roll includes crab meat, cream cheese, cucumber and avocado, and it is topped with salmon, spicy mayonnaise and eel sauce. The whole roll is baked on til fox and can be ordered for $12.95. As I ate the pizza roll, I was overwhelmed by the spiciness in the mayonnaise and eel sauce. It became difficult for me to finish the roll because of how spicy it was, so I ended up removing the salmon and mayo from the top. I was much more satisfied with the taste after doing this, and I enjoyed my last few pieces of sushi. I give I Love Mr. Sushi three stars.

Drunken Fish: For the last stop on my sushi journey, I went downtown to Drunken Fish, located in Ballpark Village by Busch Stadium. Drunken Fish was definitely the biggest restaurant I went to, and the design was very welcoming and modern. On the menu, I noticed that there were many dishes aside from sushi, such as stir fries and steak dished. I ordered a specialty starburst roll. The starburst roll contains crab, shrimp tempura, avocado, tamago, a type of Japanese omelette, and masago, or fish eggs. It was wrapped in pink soy paper and topped with honey-wasabi mayonnaise and sriracha sauce and could be ordered for $14.50. The starburst roll was the prettiest of the rolls that I tried, thanks to the pink soy paper. Although the presentation was admirable, the taste of the starburst roll was, in my opinion, not quite up to par. The soy paper was crumbly, and the wasabi mayo was a bit too spicy. However, the crab, shrimp tempura and avocado blended together perfectly and were quite satisfying. Overall, I give Drunken Fish four stars.

 

The rest was history: Student’s job encourages the discovery of her love of history

Published: Panorama, Feb. 15, 2017

About: This is my first article that I had published in the Panorama! Since then, I have aimed to improve every aspect of my journalistic skillset, from AP style to interviewing tactics.

Story: Three times a week, senior Sophia Wu leaves school and heads straight for work, where she can pursue her passion while gaining a valuable hands-on experience. Wu has worked at the Missouri History Museum for a year and a half, and she works in the Exhibitions and Research department with professional historians.

“I help with making exhibits, researching, cataloging, brainstorming project ideas for the museum, maintaining the archives, enhancing visitor experience, giving tours to the public and conducting oral history projects,” Wu said.

Wu fell in love with history during United States Studies in social studies teacher Robert Good’s class. She felt captivated by the idea that social studies is not just the process of memorizing facts and dates but more of the study of how people across different cultures work together to change and shape society.

“Dr. Good also mentioned that history is an argument of the past, and since I love to debate and talk about contentious issues, history was just for me,” Wu said.

Wu has also been greatly influenced by social studies teacher Christopher Saxton’s AP U.S. History class. Wu says that it is her favorite class in high school, and the one that inspired her to take the job at the museum.

“Mr. Saxton made history fun and a passion for me, and his lectures were intriguing and

interesting to listen to,” Wu said. “In APUSH, document-based questions and analyzing docu- ments were a big component of the class, and I realized that I loved to analyze history from primary and secondary sources. I realized that since I loved to learn history in class, I wanted to explore more outside of the classroom, which led me to apply for a job at the Missouri History Museum.”

Saxton recognizes many character traits that Wu possesses that make her an exceptional addition to the museum. He believes that history is an active subject, and he hopes Wu will continue to be passionate about it.

“[Wu] is an amazing student and her interest and passion for history is amazing,” Saxton said. “[Wu’s] interest in history went way beyond APUSH, and her commitment to not only studying history, but [experiencing] it by working at the Missouri Historical Society has hopefully made an example to other students who share the same passion for the discipline as she does.”

Wu thinks that the best job at the museum is handling the collections and researching the origins of every object in the museum’s inventory. She has been exposed to St. Louis’s interesting history as a prosperous trading site along the Mississippi River and as a host for the World’s Fair in 1904.

“I love being one of the first people to touch objects from donors and [include] it in our collection that could be used for future exhibits,” Wu said. “Some of my favorite objects ranged from a 150-year-old cookie to a buffalo’s bladder from a Native American reservation that was donated.”

Wu’s friends are extremely supportive and motivated by her hard work and dedication. Senior Bibi Schindler believes that the job at the museum fits Wu extraordinarily well because it applies to her interests.

“[Wu] loves history,” Schindler said. “She went to the Inauguration and the Women’s March [on Washington] because she knew she was witnessing really important historic events.”

Wu has been an integral part in producing many phenomenal exhibits at the museum. However, her favorite display is one that focuses on Route 66, one of the original U.S. highways that passed through St. Louis.

“[Route 66] touches many themes and issues that people encountered when traveling on the route such as themes of family, isolation, traveling, gender roles, racial issues and achieving the American dream,” Wu said. “The exhibit is a prime example of how you can look at history through varying experiences of people who traveled on the highway. Everyone had his or her own experience, and that’s what made the exhibit so special.”

 

Student goes on interfaith journey during summer journalism program

Published: St. Louis Jewish Light Sept. 14, 2018

About: I wrote this story in response to an experience I had at the Medill-Northwestern Journalism Institute. I think it outlines what I hope to achieve through my journalistic endeavors, and the risks I take to do so.

Story: Over the summer, I attended the Medill-Northwestern Journalism Institute, a five-week-long intensive program for high school seniors located at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Finally, I found myself fully immersed in the world of journalism. Lectures and writing labs nine hours a day expanded upon my knowledge of print, broadcast and audio mediums. At this program, I wrote a story that made me reconsider what it means to not only be a journalist, but a Jewish one.

Since the age of 10, I had attended a girls-only summer camp in Massachusetts. The majority of campers were white, Jewish and from the tri-state area, just like I was (I moved to St. Louis from New York after that summer). However, at Medill, program participants were diverse in thought, culture and even nationality. The 84 participants  hailed from 22 states as well as China, South Korea, Vietnam and Qatar. I was the only cherub – as students in this program are affectionately known — from Missouri, and learning about my new friends’ newspapers, editing processes and struggles with peer review was eye-opening.

Each day of the program brought a new assignment. I wrote about Evanstonians’ opinions on arming teachers. I discovered and interviewed 15 people about a trend of high school girls becoming politically active. I followed a panhandler for an afternoon and put my observations into words on paper. And, I wrote about local churches that changed my life.

During the third week, our instructors gave us an assignment: write a feature story about anything in Evanston. The ambiguity of the assignment scared me, and I spent the rest of the day walking around town, hoping to somehow stumble onto a story. It wasn’t until I turned left onto Church Street that I knew I had something.

Until this point, churches had been a mystery to me. In fact, other than a brief unit in eighth grade social studies, I knew little about the Christian religion. I grew up in a Jewish household, and most of my close friends are Jewish as well. I can still recite my bat mitzvah Torah portion from memory, and, in my opinion, there is no better taste than challah dipped in grape juice. But, from my position at an Evanston intersection, I could see at least one church in each direction, and decided to remove my Jewish hat in favor of a reporter’s notebook.

Although my story lacked any sort of angle or direction, I took a deep breath and walked into the First Presbyterian Church of Evanston. A member of the clergy gave me a tour of the chapel and said that the congregation was celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. The church’s hallways were lined with photos from its 125th anniversary, and I noticed that nearly everyone photographed was white. My tour guide proudly explained that, in the last 25 years, the church had increased its non-white population to almost 40 percent of its congregants.

I was introduced to the senior pastor, a Jamaican-American man named Raymond Hylton. Hylton told me about the church’s efforts to welcome refugee families and help them assimilate to American life through an organization called “First Friends.” This reminded me of the efforts my temple, Congregation Shaare Emeth, made to assist new Americans through its partnership with the International Institute of St. Louis.

“These people have come here under great duress,” Hylton told me. “You’d be looking for somebody to make you feel safe.”

I spent the rest of the day speaking with the clergy members at nearly every church in walking distance, including Methodist and Lutheran places of worship. Many told me about their communal efforts to ease refugees’ transitions, including one pastor whose congregation makes 130 quilts annually for refugee families. At the end of every interview, the clergy members told me that I was always welcome into their community.

Later that evening, as I sat down to transcribe my interviews, I felt overwhelmed by the kindness Pastor Hylton and so many others had shown me, a complete stranger of a completely different faith. While religion has long been a divider, the experience reminded me that it can also unite people to work towards a greater good. Although a journalist’s job is primarily to inform, we are also called upon to aid those searching for a place to belong. I hope that, through my journalism pursuits, I can do just that.