Friday, May 12, 2006

kiss-off kozen?

Have you ever looked at the best seller lists and wondered who the fuck is still buying the Da Vinci Code after all this time? For instance the HARDCOVER (even though the paperback is on sale) is currently number 9 on the times best sellers list after 162 freaking weeks! Well, I was walking in Davis today and this co-ed behind me says to her friend that she just bought it NEW (at least in paperback). What is wrong with people? How many used copies must be floating around out there? Stop killing trees! This girl also said, "have you heard of that show like American Idol, only it's called American Inventor? I don't know if it started or what it's on but it sounds really good". She's like a TV exec's wet dream. American inventor sounds good to her?!

There's a good city planning article in this weeks News and Review.

I ate at Kozen last night with Brew and GW. I feel bad complaining that it's too expensive because I knew it was going to be expensive. I think that when you know that going in you shouldn't go unless you are prepared to drop some serious dough, and I wasn't prepared. If you've ever seen this restaurant (on Fair Oaks, near ruth's chrisss steaks house-it used to be an Indian place) you know that it is swanky-looking, yet very strangely designed. It looks more like a mountain lodge than a restaurant in the parking lot of a strip mall. The space inside was nice and light, with cool, cube-shaped chairs, but the floor to ceiling windows looked out onto Fair Oaks, not exactly the nicest view. The service was laughably psuedo-highbrow, with some strained hand gesturing and some hushed mentions of "chef recommends". We split a seaweed salad with some very interesting kinds of seaweed that I've never had. It was woefully underdressed (which is an ok break from the normal overdressing most salads get) and although the pink and green seaweeds had interesting flavors, it was lacking in that sesame goodness I look for in a wakame salad. We checked out the sushi menus and they sell nigiri by the piece, not by two pieces. This is LAME and is just a way to charge more. Nigiri has always been two pieces anywhere I've ever eaten. We split three rolls. People on chowhound and other places keep giving props to Kozen for being less mayo-ey and more traditional style. They are right on one count and wrong on the other. The composition of these rolls is really similar to Mikuni, they just have less sauce. Overall, they were a notch tastier than most downtown rolls, I'll give them that. We didn't get any of the other, non-sushi dishes because they just cost too much and I was afraid the portions would be tiny. I ate some granola and yogurt when I got home.

7 comments:

Stephen Glass said...

Pfft. "Da Vinci Code"-reading co-eds. They always have the most whip-smart ideas about everything.

Anonymous said...

You should of tried some stuff at kozen that you cant get anywhere else. Rolls are a dime a dozen in these parts so if you have an option of something else, you should go for it. All just my opinion of course.

beckler said...

are you my sugar daddy? i told you, i couldn't afford it. i tried to eat on regular sushi prices (which are already high) and i couldn't do it.

Anonymous said...

I still like Taro's, its different. I decided we get treated so well there because Taro has a boner for Thiemann. He made a pass at him in front of me and my mom! He held up this giant hairy Japanese potato (have you seen these? they are like 2 feet long and hairy) and winked at Mike then made a potato snot shooter for him only. Then, I forget what we were talking about, he says to Mike, "I will show you how strong I am later tonight!" while flexing his muscles. Its cool as long as I get weird Japanese food I can't get anywhere else like a clam that looks like a mirugai and a purple spiky gourd mated. He also gave me a plate of squid innards and ankimo. yummers.

werenotdeep said...

It's funny how people think that the premises in the DaVinci code aren't totally fictional. I mean, the main charachters in the book are just fictitious charachters. Don't they get that the whole idea of this secret code that's woven through the history of religion and art is just made up? It's a thriller novel! It's not supposed to be taken seriously!

Anonymous said...

My only problem with the DaVinci Code is that it is so poorly written. Seems like whenever someone asks me if I've read it and what did I think, when I tell them, they try to sell me on what a great writer Brown is. These are probably stephen king fans, though, so I forgive them.

Ed

Anonymous said...

In the Japan,the higher end sushi-ya's sell sushi by the piece.