The name game

NO-NAME Sushi has a name.

Haywire Winterwire has a name. He called me last night to tell me. "I have a name," he said. "I have a new name!" –I was making myself a refrigerator omelet for dinner. Let's see, we have a carrot, some celery, onion, a few olives, some leftover marinara sauce, and about 30 eggs. Always plenty of eggs in the chicken farmer's refrigerator.

"What's your new name?" I said, squeezing the phone between my shoulder and ear. Chopping stuff.

"Styles ... Bitchly."

"What?"

"Styles Bitchly."

I laughed for about 15 minutes, and he admitted that it wasn't his invention. An old rock-and-roll drummer, I think he said, or actually a number of people, probably all rock-and-roll drummers, sported the name Styles Bitchly. Haywire plays clarinet. Standards from the '20s and '30s. He's also an accomplished penny whistler.

Earl Butter plays guitar. Earl Butter has a name. His name is Earl Butter and he's getting his hair back. This is a marvelous thing, considering that he's been going bald for as long as I've known him, which is, what, almost 20 years, pretty much exactly. Plus a couple months. He was the first person I met when I moved away from Ohio to go to grad school in New Hampshire. We became best friends. We were 22 years old and he was already balding. I have pictures to prove it.

The secret to his current full head of hair is twofold: Mr. Rogers, and rum.

Mr. Rogers – you all remember what that's about, right? "I'm eating a Chinese egg roll. And when I eat it," he said, "I'm still Mr. Rogers!" This was before he died. Nevertheless, as I believe I've already demonstrated, it has become like a Jesus thing to us, redeeming our sins and saving us from ourselves and whatnot. Salvation, the Way ...

Rum is another thing entirely. Like Mr. Rogers, it can have a profound effect on Sir Reality. With Mr. Rogers, forget it, it's done. You have hair. You are, if you're me, a calypsonian. It's as automatic as Dorothy's new red shoes.

To review, all you have to do, give or take a "Chinese egg roll," is say you are something, or someone, or still something or someone, pour in a bunch of rum.... Or maybe you want to be somewhere. Else, I mean, the likes of which there is no place.

Rum is good, but you run out of it. Then you have to click your heels together and somehow get to the Rite Aid on 24th Street because that's where it's cheap. Sometimes it's on sale, but even if not ... cheap.

And of course you've lost track of the time, missed dinner, but you've had a late big lunch, let's say, so you're not starving, but still you should have a little something.

Sushi, right? It's the perfect time for sushi. Nine-thirty p.m. I wanted to go to Miyabi because I know you can get 10 pieces of saba for 10 bucks. But Earl suggested No-Name, because he knows better than I do. Would you believe I'd never been to No-Name? Too popular, can't be any good, I thought. Or can't be cheap.

It's cheaper than Miyabi! It's cheaper than dollar-sushi day in Sebastopol! And it's a great little funky place inside. No wonder there's a line out the door half the time.

Check this out: four pieces of tuna, $3.95. Four pieces of hamachi, $4.15. Four pieces of my beloved saba, $3.40. And so on. Octopus, $3.45. Vegetable ones, including "pickled beefsteak plant seeds," all for well under four-for-four.

I wish I could say that everything sucked, so as not to encourage anyone else from getting in line ahead of me. But –

I just won't say anything. I'll review instead the great CD Earl Butter bought me at Streetlight, by way of being a swell cat. Dan Reeder, another person with a name. He plays homemade guitars and sings very simple, very beautiful, often very short homemade songs that anyone in their right mind would wish they'd of written.

Well, what the hell are pickled beefsteak plant seeds?

Bring your own bottle.

Rum. Help me to syncopate. Put it in me. Help me to have a name, like the late Mr. Rogers and others. Even No-Name Sushi.

Yokoso Nippon. 314 Church, SF. Mon.-Sat, noon-10 p.m. Takeout available. Credit cards not accepted. No alcohol. Wheelchair accessible.

Dan Leone (cheapeatsguy@yahoo.com) is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).