The next few days had a somewhat similar formula: get up late, meet for an afternoon coffee, stop for snacks, do some internet, and then go out. Because we had been staying in a hostel without internet we stopped frequently in cafes with wifi. Our favorite was called "The Green House". It was a cafe at the base of a hostel, also of the same name. The second or third time I was there I realized that our psycho friend Emily had mentioned that she frequently played music at a place in the neighborhood that had "Green" in its name; I think this was it. I never saw her there though. She was a bit Norman Bates crazy, sure, but her wake was entertaining and colorful like a Dr. Seuss.
The night of our first Patpong adventure we had walked by a sushi place with a sign advertising 'All You Can Eat' for a little under 500 baht, or 15 dollars. This sign stopped us cold. Our feet and eyes were frozen and our mouths began to foam with hunger suds. You can't go into a place with a deal like that without fasting, so we had to plan ahead, for today. Luke had gotten into contact with two girls from Israel he had met from China and invited them to join us.
We were supposed to meet Luke's friends on Khaosan Road, which can, at times, be like a freeway of burnt out hippies. We walked up and down it for a few minutes, then suddenly Luke was greeting a tall, muscular Asian girl. She was a femanized Conan the Barbarian. I didn't think it was his Israeli friend, since she was Asian, but it was. I've never met an Asian-Israeli before. Her accent was straaaaange. The other girl was white and a bit of a low talker.
We walked over to the Sushi place. The Barbarian Lady said that she was a vegetarian! That is not possible. I was hoping to see her strong arm a salmon and destroy it beneath her trash compacter jaws. So let down. Since we had non meat eaters in tow, we thought to check out the buffet first. Also it would be nice to see that the fish wasn't befouled by the tropical climate. We walked in and were greeted by a older Japanese man. "Konnichi-wa!". We inquired about seeing the buffet, but he responded that there was no buffet. We had a 10 second pause where we put on Kabuki masks that best demonstrated how confused we were. "There is no buffet. You order off of a menu," the many finally broke in and said. Our masks were shattered by our gasps--our joyful gasps. "So you mean, for 15 dollars, we can order as much sushi off the menu as we want" Yes, absolutely. Luke and I got giddy. We might have floated away had the old man not grabbed our arms to lead us to our table.
We sat in the upstairs room at one of the no shoes, on the floor, tables. It was on the floor, but the floor had a hole in it below the table, so i was more like an indented table. They told us that there was a separate menu for the buffet, which didn't include every thing that the normal menu had, so we got both to compare. They were pretty similar for the most part--some of the more exotic creatures were omitted from the buffet, but I don't like them anyway. Everything I would want except Unagi was on the buffet menu, so we went for it--the girls opted for the regular menu. The older Japanese man that had seated us came back to explain the rules of the buffet. Basically you get a 2 hour window to eat, you cannot share, and if you leave anything on your plate they charge extra. They way it was worded and the way the rules were delivered made it sound like there were going to be sticklers about it--meaning they probably already had the 2 hour clock running. Maybe they had us on camera, armed with a trigger of alarms, waiting for us to share. And how much would they charge if we didn't finish? What if it is disgusting? I began to see how this magical feast could easily turn into a terrible scam. Still, Luke and I were determined. We agreed that our first round should be small, with food we know we love: Tuna and Salmon Sashimi, Teriyaki rolls, and some rainbow rolls (which are also Salmon and Tuna). The waiter pointed to the rainbow picture on the menu and explained that it would be a "half" order. I only get half a portion? Just for this one? Why? My sleuthing yielded no answers. Fine, it's ok. The girls ordered various rolls off the regular menu. Then we waited--for a while.
It had been almost 20 minutes and we started to wonder if they were stalling on purpose. Luke was about to boil over--his volume was filled with a fiery acid that, if spilled, would scald a titanium man. It seemed like people around us were getting food! ut they weren't all getting Sushi. Finally some plates came out--2 plates of rolls, 4 per plate. One was the rainbow, which they had said would be a half order; the other was the Teriyaki, which they did not say was a half order. So I wondered if maybe they meant all the rolls are a half order? I guessed that maybe, since it was a buffet, people would want to try different things. They were probably just lazy about not fixing the pictures on the menu, fair enough. The rolls were consumed before the waiter had made it back into the kitchen. They were super good. Luke's boiling settled a bit. But we really wanted our sashimi, and of all things they have to prepare, that seems like it would be the quickest. Maybe they have to go catch a fish. I just said things to keep us calm. It was another 15 or 20 minutes before our next round of food came, during which Luke and I prepared a bombardment of orders. Luke was going to order the house. We weren't sure if we would have time for a round 3. So as they came to deliver some more rolls and a few of our Sashimis, including the girls food, we let them have it. We must have ordered 10 items each, then we went back to feasting. Everything was amazing. Very fresh and flavorful. But I noticed something--we had another half order of teriyaki rolls? Uh oh. We only ordered one. Maybe they split it up? But why would they split it up? Maybe everything we ordered is split up like this--maybe we just ordered twice as much food as we thought? This could be really bad--maybe THIS is the real way they scam you. I was hungry, but I'm not Galactus, as much as I wish I were. Slowly more food arrived, and it seemed like most of it was indeed half portions. A few things they gave us double of, probably they just got confused. We just waited for a while and finally asked if we had any more stuff on the way--they said all that was left was the sashimi, which they apologized had been taking longer because they have one sashimi guy and he was waist high in orders of it--they said that rolls and cooked items would be quicker. This was ok, although what we most wanted was the sashimi, but we put in one more order: fried squid, salmon steak, and some tempura rolls. These were delivered instantly--Star Trek replicator fast. Finally just as I was approaching the summit of satisfaction, our last few plates of Sashimi arrived, most of which were for Luke. He was fading though, so I had to help him out (it was ok for sharing to occur among buffeters).
We finished everything, but I had a few frightful moments when I saw waiters walk by with heaps of rolls, worried they might be for us. Luckily not. In the end I counted that I had 23 sushi roll pieces, 16 pieces of sashimi, 6 rings of fried squid, and half of a grilled salmon fillet. If the seafood feast in Sockcho put an aquarium in my stomach then this night at the Sushi places built a new Sea World inside of me. I added everything I ordered up, taking into account the half orders, and it came to 1250 Baht. We paid 495 Baht. Luke took down 1375 Baht (but I helped on some; so we were pretty much evenly matched.). In the end, despite the scare of the scam, we were highly satisfied. We hoped that we would soon come back to the galaxy of sushi.
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