AYCES!

       I learned today that in the same strip mall as the Persian restaurant we ate at the other night, is an All-You-Can-Eat Sushi place – charging only $20 per person each evening.

       I am beginning to think our new neighborhood may just be heaven on earth.

       Tom and I have had All-You-Can-Eat Sushi only once before. 

       It was in Toronto, perhaps 14 years ago, and we had seen an advertisement offering the sushi extravaganza one Sunday a month. When we got to the restaurant in question though, we learned that the advertisement had been misleading. Our waiter, and then a manager, tried to insist that we first consume miso soup, salad, gyoza, stir-fried vegetables and teriyaki chicken, before moving onto the sushi “course”. 

       We were annoyed, as were a few other diners at the restaurant. I think I pointed out that I am a lawyer. And we insisted on just sushi. 

       We were served it grudgingly, and with admonitions that we had to eat all the rice and that if we failed to eat anything we ordered, we would be up-charged for the cost of the pieces we failed to eat. That, of course made us still more annoyed. We figured that if they were going to be nasty to us, we were going to be nasty back.  So we decided to eat the restaurant into bankruptcy. 

       We surreptitiously formed baseballs of rice in our laps and consumed plate after plate of tuna, salmon and yellowtail. And then we ordered more…and more…and more, and ate all of that too. It’s amazing how much sushi one can eat (or sashimi, since we were not eating rice except when a waiter was watching) when one is annoyed.

        The only problem was that when we got up to leave, we discovered that we could hardly move. Our gullets were so full of fish that we feared some of it might swim right out of our mouths.

       We had taken the subway to the restaurant, but understood that if we tried to take it home, we would almost certainly end up regurgitating our feast. Familiar with the erratic driving of Toronto cab drivers, we feared a taxi would be even worse. And it was too far to walk. 

       So we were stuck.
       Even now, I can’t help but feel there is an Aesop’s Fable that addresses this situation. Or if there isn’t, there should be:  “The Righteous Customers Who Ate a Whale” or something like that. 

       In any case, as I said, we were stuck. With small shuffling steps, we managed to make our way out to the sidewalk. And with still more shuffling steps, we carefully walked a few feet in one direction and then a few feet back. And then a few more feet in one direction and a few feet back. We moaned – a lot – and laughed just a little. We knew that if we laughed too hard, disaster might strike. 

       After perhaps 30 minutes of this, we felt able to walk to a tiny specialty book store that was only a block away. This was not the type of store that, like Barnes and Noble, offered vast areas with nooks and sofas where we could curl up and be left alone. Instead, we had to squeeze between bookcases, where we perused every item in the store with tremendous care, and then re-perused them. And then, pretending to find things in particular books that we simply had to show each other, we gazed at them together. 

       And we waited, patiently, for our fish to digest. 

       When the store closed 90 minutes later, it was dark outside, and it was getting cold. We decided it was time to risk the subway trip home, and we did make it without mishap. Since then though, we have never gorged on sushi. 

       But here in the suburbs, that is all about to change. Only a few blocks away, we can eat all the fish we want – for $20 a night – every night of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year. And assuming the restaurant staff isn’t nasty about it, we’ll even eat a nearly reasonable amount – preserving our relationship with this neighborhood treasure, and coming again and again. 

       And again...

       Mmmmmm...