If you’re familiar with Twitter, you know that the social media site is, essentially, a game of follow the leader. People who have Twitter feeds publish updates in the form of 140-character “tweets” which go out to whomever is following them. The goal, (for most people, anyway) is to attract others of to follow so they can read whatever you write. The more you write - and, more importantly, the more entertaining or useful your tweets are - the more followers you attract. The more followers you attract, as the logic goes, the more influence you have.

How do you know who is following you? You get an e-mail notification that someone has signed on to read your Twitter posts.

A few months back, I got a notice in my e-mail that my Twitter feed was being followed by someone named Christy Wild. Not knowing anyone by that name, I clicked on the profile and found this:

Name Christy Wild
Location Tampa, Florida
Bio I am a: Stripper, Porn Chick, Geek, Wiccan, Oenophile, Bibliophile, and Sushi lover ... I have CD but still have fun with life.

Interesting mix.

As a food writer, you might bump into an adult entertainer who may also be into wine. Or a food lover who appreciates the stripping arts. Or a book lover with a love of sushi who also follows neopagan, nature-based religions. But rarely would you bump into one accidentally who combines all of those, much less one who must navigate the pylons of Celiac’s Disease. Oh, and in Tampa, no less.

Yes, I’m man enough to admit I was intriged by the bright shiny porn object, but not for the immediate reason you might assume.

Two years ago, I covered the Night Moves Adult Entertainment Awards in Clearwater and rapped about food with an actor named Sean Michaels, known as “the Godfather of Adult Entertainment.” Turns out that Michaels was quite the foodie and liked to frequent the best restaurants wherever he went. I’d been wanting to write about food found in unlikely places. I like finding those unexpected places where food and real life meet. Everbody eats, you know?

With that in mind, I pitched the idea to him of writing about the craft services table at adult movie shoots and he seemed interested. We promised to keep in touch, but things kept getting in the way and the project fell by the wayside.

I was intrigued by the bouillabaisse of interests I found in Christy Wild’s bio, so I sent her a message asking about her favorite local sushi places. We e-mailed back and forth a few times, and it became clear that she knew her sushi.

It makes sense, since sushi is one of the safest gluten-free cuisines for those with Celiac Disease. There are cross contamination issues with utensils or prep surfaces that also are used for products with tempura-batter or wheat in them. Artificial crab and some types of fish roe are also off the list, since they’re also made with wheat. Many CD sushi lovers I know bring their own gluten-free soy sauce with them.

Eventually we agreed to get toether to talk sushi. During those e-mails, I realized she had been a performer that evening at the Night Moves awards show. The ice was broken. We agreed to meet at Sushi Tsu in Tampa Palms with her friend Carrie and my friend Rommie.

I could bore you with a bunch of my blah-blah and impress you with my word prowess, but I think you’d rather I hand the mike over to Christy, who wrote this comprehensive and accurate review:

We all went to Sushi Tsu on Amberley Drive over by USF….me and [my friend] Carrie got there a little early so we enjoyed 2-4-1 drinks at the bar…. she had a martini with at least 6 different liquors and I went the easy route with a McWilliams Chardonnay (AZ label, very good IMO).

We met the guys a couple minutes later and enjoyed get to know you chit chat while deciding what all we wanted to share. Jeff had seen the TNT Mussels (Mussels fried in wasabi) described, so I decided to be game with the rest of them and try one…as Jeff put it, his taste buds were seared from now to Thanksgiving.

We picked a few rolls and I had to go with at least the salmon sushi while Jeff wanted to try the sea urchin.

Urchin wasn’t that bad, we found out…rather a non taste, I believe. 

The salmon, a typical fave for me, seemed okay, but seemed to have a marineish aftertaste to us. The Philadeliphia roll (called Bagel here) was okay in the sense that this place knew that the damn roll involved a modicum of cream cheese to be a Philly roll. We all liked the Spider roll and the Mexican roll seemed nice as well. 

I had picked the Volcano roll, expected something on par with the quality of the Volcano rolls from Samurai Blue, but, alas, it was not to be.

We all thought it bombed out of all the rolls we had - this one was the WORST…and me being a sushi foodie, you know I don’t say that lightly. 

But the REAL star of the night was the Ridiculous Roll… VERY good roll and a fabulous counterpoint to the Volcano roll debacle.

For more photos from the evening, click here.