National Cherry Blossom Festival 2011 - Grand Sushi Event, Washington, D.C.

After trudging around in the cold rain for 3 hours trying to participate in the 2011 National Cherry Blossom Festival, find photogenic views of the sakura, and express solidarity with troubled Japan in some small way, it was a relief at 6 p.m. to finally arrive at the National Geographic Grosvenor Auditorium for the NCBF / Nat Geo Live! Grand Sushi Event, consign my wet coat and hat to coat-check, and begin drying out.

Relief, that is, until I was informed that 7 p.m. was not the time to commence eating but the time to commence seating, and there was to be a 4th hour of standing in a line.  Not the conditions a $100 event would lead one to expect, and quite a damper of enthusiasm for future Nat Geo Live! events.

The theme of the dinner (I had to stop referring to it as the event) was sustainability, which much of contemporary fish consumption obviously is not, and it was hosted by chefs / authors / sustainability-advocates Casson Trenor and Barton Seaver and sponsored and supplied by Pennsylvania-based Whole Foods supplier Genji.

The menu, designed by Genji Executive Chef Miki Willis, consisted of 7 courses and a (non-paired) selection of 6 beverages.

National Cherry Blossom Festival 2011 - Day 5 in Pictures, Washington, D.C.

Sakura!

The National Park Service reported that peak bloom was yesterday, National Cherry Blossom Festival 2011 day 4 (of 15).  So here is my value-added photo tour of the Potomac River Tidal Basin on the day after, for whatever it may still be worth.