One of my favorite things, besides peanut butter and besides froyo, is sushi.
So naturally, when there was a Groupon for ALL YOU CAN EAT sushi on the Upper East Side - I told Peter he better buy one and come eat endless raw fish with me. Luckily, he agreed.
Typically, the deal at Chinatown is $33 for all you can eat sushi and a little more expensive for the all you can eat and drink option. Our Groupon was AYCE + 3 drinks (wine, beer or sake).
From what I gather, the place is pretty raucous on the weekends. But Peter and I went on a Tuesday night and it was pretty empty.
I was kind of overwhelmed by the fact that the AYCE options don't only include sushi, but include Chinese dishes like General Tso's Chicken, egg rolls, dumplings, fried rice, etc.
But you are quickly given the "rules" of this AYCE experience - and those rules include being charged for any food leftover on your plate at the end of the night. Including rice.
While Peter and I joked around about just taking whatever we didn't eat into the bathroom to flush it away - I do see where the restaurant is coming from. With big groups of people, the waste could get a little out of hand.
We started with an order of pork dumplings and there were SO many. Already we weren't loving this "no leftovers" rule - we wanted to save room for the main event - sushi! But the peanut sauce with these dumplings was STELLAR. We actually used it later on for dipping our sushi into - since the one dumpling we knew we would have to finish eventually sat there. And sat there. They definitely weren't going to clear it, and they were definitely going to charge us for it unless we ate it. Ugh.
After the dumplings we moved onto sushi - ordering one at a time from the specialty roll menu to pace ourselves. I loved that some of their rolls were out of the ordinary - not just "spicy salmon" and "California roll."
First I tried the Spicy Yellowtail roll because it came with cilantro and jalapeno!
Peter's first choice was the Sexy Roll - shrimp tempura, spicy tuna, topped with white tuna and avocado! The shrimp made it soo sweet and delicious.
Next I got t he Spicy Salmon Roll - standard crunchy salmon with avocado on top - because when you're eating all you can eat sushi - why not splurge and go for alllll the tempura.
Peter got the Amaebi Roll - Spicy crab and crunch inside with sweet shrimp and avocado on top. The name kept reminding me of the little girl in the movie Signs who says, "Morgan took a sip and it's got his amoebas on it!" Anyone, anyone?
Usually, I claim that sushi never fills me up, I can eat it all night. And typically, I can eat 3 or 4 rolls no problem. Seriously, ask my parents, they're always in awe of how much sushi I can eat.
But Peter and I were both slowing down so we decided to split one more roll and order an eggroll because I reallllly wanted one.
The eggroll was an eggroll. You basically like it for the fried outer part dunked in duck sauce. They may as well leave out the cabbage filling.
The last roll we split was the Dancing Mango - lightly fried white fish, mango inside and topped with kani and tobiko. Kani = crab meat and tobiko = the little crunchy fish eggs!
We left the restaurant stuffed to discomfort - as is typical for "All You Can Eat" affairs (see, Fogo de Chao).
I would definitely recommend this place, if only for the hugeee variety of things you can order!
