Chihuahua Chirashi: The Most Unlikely Sushi Tomodachi

Full disclosure, if you asked me about adding Chihuahuas, of all dogs, to Sushi Tomodachi a year ago, I would have thought you were out of your mind. For a long time, I found a lot of price in my dedication to authenticity, but I've grown more partial to the idea of... shall we call it, "fusion food"? over time. 

Chihuahua Chirashi Bowl + Tako-Yak-I

The day I made these sketches, I certainly did not wake up expecting to. This was the delightful surprise of my very first Tasting Room Sketch Stream! For a while now, we've been collecting ideas for dishes in the #recipe-ideas channel over on Discord, and there's been a lot of really great stuff in there. Those ideas don't do us much good if we don't do anything with them though, and the Tasting Room Sketch Stream was born.

We started from the beginning and gathered up a few contendors, and let the community vote on the winning dishes. Chirashi was one I was kind of avoiding, but the community seemed interested, so I let them vote, and it won.

I had absolutely ZERO clue on what animal I could use for Chirashi, which was honestly part of my hesitance for it. I strive to make Sushi Tomodachi "authentic" but what's the fun of food without trying something new? I started hitting a wall by limiting myself.

Lately, I've noticed a lot of people connecting with the Sushi Tomodachi as representations of their pets, so I'd slowly been adding more pet-shapes to the menu. My most recent Kickstarter, the All You Can Eat collection, featured 3 new cats alone! So I was already open to the idea of integrating pets, even if they weren't Japanese animals.

I drew a bowl, and added some food, and hemmed and hawed as I tried to let the sketch show me an animal. It just wasn't coming to me until I heard it.

Chihuahua

Chirashi

Geographical origins aside, one thing that is VERY Sushi Tomodachi is a good alliteration, and especially one with a lot of cuteness potential.

This is a post in progress, and I plan on updating it as I finish the artwork, so check back later to see how this pin unfolds!