LaClair: What do Japan and General Custer have in common? Farmington.

Another day, another short road trip. This time, it was uncomfortably hot, and the car was comfortably cool. I was looking forward to visiting a used bookstore as I’m on the search for nifty paperbacks from the '80s. I’ve gotten quite nostalgic for those wonderful covers I remember in the stores as a child. Anyway, I was headed to Farmington, and while the search for books was uppermost on my mind on the way there, the search for food soon took precedence after the shopping was done.

We Googled restaurants in Farmington and saw there were a couple of different Asian options, and that sounded light on a hot day. We chose O-Saki Express based on some enthusiastic reviews, but we didn’t read far enough. When we pulled into the address shown online, what we found was a food truck. Now, I got the impression that this food truck is always parked in this spot, and it is in front of a building that looks like a restaurant inside but isn’t currently open. I noticed the employees going in and out of said building for drinks and ingredients, so I wonder if the truck is a temporary base of operations while the building is being remodeled. Time will tell.

I wanted to try as much as possible, so I started with rangoons, then ordered two sushi rolls, one of which was the OMG roll, and ended with a Chicken Fried Rice Mixed. Then we waited on a picnic table right outside of the truck with a pager to let us know when our food was done. As we waited, I watched person after person come and pick up to-go orders, and I just smiled. Business was hopping, and that boded well for the quality of food I was about to receive.

It didn’t take too long for freshly prepared food, and we picked up our order, unpacked it at the picnic table, and dug in. We were hungry. The smell of old pages and the excitement of finding treasures tends to do that to me. I started with a crab rangoon, and I always love it when I bite into one and can actually see the crab inside. These were lovely, and tasted even lovelier. If you like this now ubiquitous cream cheese and crab mixture folded into a crispy fried egg and flour wrap, you’ll like the ones at O-Saki as well.

The OMG roll was worthy of the name. Shrimp tempura, which is just a lightly breaded and crispy fried shrimp, baked salmon, spicy mayo … popping the whole piece into my mouth at once just set off a medley of sensations. That’s why I love sushi. The more you chew, the more complicated the flavors get, the more they combine and gain depth, salty, sweet, savory, crispy, soft, each piece is a carefully and thoughtfully prepared meal. Wonderful.

Don’t sleep on the Chicken Fried Rice Mixed. I mostly ordered it because I knew it would take more than the sushi rolls and the rangoons to fill Seth up, and I just needed more filler. But this motivation fills me with shame now, because this was the best fried rice I have ever had. When we tasted it, we tried it together, and we both paused, stock still. Our eyes met, and then we smiled. One of us murmured an “mmm,” and we both nodded. It was one of those moments that pauses time, just for a moment, because neither one of us expected a simple fried rice with few visible ingredients to be so good. I highly recommend it.

But it was hot, and I wanted ice cream. After another Google search, I simply had to visit a place with a name like General Custard’s Re-Treat. What a marvelous play on words! If you’re in the area, please go visit. This was such a throwback to the mom and pop places of decades ago, but the creamy frozen custard came in so many varieties, with so many flavors and toppings. I got a Strawberry Shortcake Sundae, complete with a piece of shortcake on the bottom that deliciously soaked up all of the berry juice and melted custard. Seth got a Banana Pudding Concrete. Both were huge, generous portions and that concrete tasted like the coolest summer banana pudding, absolutely delicious. Another successful road trip down in a summer full of them. Here’s hoping that you, too, are running the tires off of your car.

Rebecca LaClair travels to a new place every week to try food from a trendy restaurant or one she hasn’t been to yet.