A few friends invited me to dine out at Kenzo Sushi on Thursday. This Korean joint in San Jose is famous for their $40 all-you-can-eat option and used to be a regular destination for the Potatoes in question: Alvin + Desiree, Oliver + Brianna, Zhou, Wang, Dev. (Patrick + Diane didn’t join because their son Jasper had not gotten his shots yet.)
AYCE and GERD don’t rhyme well, but I accepted the invitation nonetheless because Wang was in town for work. The dinner at Kenzo would be my last chance to see him before he returns to Colorado for another few months.
Zhou was nice enough to give me a ride to the joint. We managed to beat traffic and arrived 15min before the 5:30pm gathering time. Everyone else was late. To kill time, we took a nice leisurely walk around the block.
It was not until 6pm that the meal started. The rules for Kenzo AYCE were a 2-hour time limit, everyone at the table has to join, and extra charge for leftovers. We ordered tons of nigiri and crunchy rolls. We also got a fair amount of oyster fry (aka Oliver’s favorite). My favorites were the Mango Crunch (“Spicy Crab, Mango, Salmon, Avocado, Tempura crumble with Unagi sauce and Spicy mayo”) and the tuna nigiri.
Believe it or not, I was able to keep up with the others and did not end up eating much less. This pushed me to the limit, but my careful pacing and portioning helped keep things controlled. There was some belching afterwards but that’s because there were some liquids already in my chest; in retrospect, I should’ve skipped lunch to prepare for such a big meal.
