January 1st 2014: A Day for Japanese Food

Having had a crazy time counting down to the New Year last night, I started out late today. I headed straight to a Japanese lunch at Asia Grill and Sushi, located in the town of Mansfield.

With my deal in hand, I decided to get the Cola Wings for appetizers,

the Tour of Asia (sea scallop, shrimp, chicken, sauteed with fresh vegetables, surrounded by tempura tofu)

and two sushi rolls, namely the Tropical Maki (kani, shrimp, cucumber wrapped with tempura flake. Topped with fresh mango, finished with pineapple and coconut sauce) and the Cajun Five Maki (bottom, shrimp tempura and cucumber roll, topped with seared beef and scallion, finished with chef's special sauce, spicy mayo and cajun spice powder).

Of all the dishes, only the Tropical Maki was not too bad. The Cajun Five Maki was interesting, although the sour yuzu sauce in it made me lose my taste for it. The Cola Wings sounded potentially interesting, but came out looking like nothing out of the ordinary, tastewise as well. The largest dish was the most disappointing, being slightly bland, although the tofu was actually pretty good.

After lunch, I visited Greenwood Lake at 262 Plain Street in town

before heading to Foxborough.

Hersey Pond, ~32 Commercial Street

Cocasset Lake, 27 Water Street

Sunset Lake, 93 Granite Street

Crack Rock Pond, 92 North Street

Lakeview Pond, 36 Lakeview Road

Vandy's Pond, 265 Cocasset Street

Glue Factory Pond, 167 Morse Street

As there was still time, I decided to do a small hike at the Neponset Reservoir in town. Thankfully, there was no snow on the trails. The path I took while here to visit the dam after parking at the end of Munroe Street is shown below in pink.

The waters were absolutely frozen, 

and people were actually doing ice fishing and hockey on the water surface.

From here, it was on to the town of Stoughton,

Pinewood Pond, 96 Lakewood Drive

Town Pond, 243 West Street

Brittons Pond, 486 School Street

before finally heading to Quincy for dinner at Koi Restaurant when the sun finally set.

This place is nothing much to look at for a Japanese restaurant, and the food wasn't really impressive either. I got the Sweet Lobster Maki (Sweet potato tempura topped with lobster, mango, avocado, flying fish roe and mayonnaise), which tasted a little weird,

and the Spicy Seafood Udon (Udon noodle in spicy chicken broth with shrimp, scallop, fish cake and vegetable), which wasn't really anything special either.

Don't think I'm coming back here any time soon.

With that, a short day of sightseeing on New Year's Day came to an end. Glad I was able to use a few deals today even though most places were closed.