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.