I found out this week, after writing a blog review of Sushi 5, that the day after I had my meal and the day before I wrote the post, the restaurant had closed for good.
In retrospect, all the clues were there. The other half of the restaurant was separated by curtain. I peeked and saw booths ripped out, chairs in disarray. But I simply dismissed it. I thought they were remodeling.
My optimism stemmed from the fact that I thought I just stumbled upon them as they were rethinking their business model. They had jettisoned their conveyor belt concept (it never worked here), and put in its place a traditional sushi bar and a special deal called “Happy Choice” for which you get 10 pieces of sushi for $11.95.
Well, it turns out that they had ditched the conveyor belt nearly four months ago. And now, they were just giving up. As soon as my post went up, a reader broke the news to me. And the review, meant to be a comeback story, became a eulogy. Insert Michael Jackson analogy here.
As reader JB succinctly put it, there would be no “happy ending” for the “Happy Choice”.
Before becoming an award-winning restaurant critic for OC Weekly in 2007, Edwin Goei went by the alias “elmomonster” on his blog Monster Munching, in which he once wrote a whole review in haiku.