My first encounter with wasabi was in Japan at a business dinner at a fancy restaurant One of these places where your waitresses were dressed like geishas and kneeled on the floor to pour you each little shot of saki.
Anyway , they bring out some food and on the plate is this pile of green paste. Being a dumbo I think its mashed peas (yes definitely stupid...did I mention the saki?
) . So I pick up the whole pile with my chopstix and shovel it into my mouth. Well needless to say , it was an eye opener.
So now the Japanese guys who brought me there start saying...Oh , you like wasabe...you ate so much...bring him more wasabi !