All-you-can-eat-sushi is a dangerous trap for any college student. First of all, it’s delicious. Second, sushi is normally really expensive, giving it this facade of glamour which makes it an attractive option for a “splurge” night out. These two factors create the ultimate danger: all-you-can-eat means you get to maximize deliciousness while feeling like your limited dollars are doing the most work.
Photo by Megan Tang
Inevitably, there will be that point in the quarter (legitimately this happens every quarter) when I’m scrolling through my Instagram feed and see a really good looking sushi dish. BOOM, the sushi craving hits. Nothing but sushi fulfills a sushi craving. My taste for sushi lurks until the right moment when I can rally the troops and get a group out to the nearest all-you-can-eat joint to satisfy the craving. And then it begins.
Stage 1: Excitement
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You’ve been thinking about this moment and have been planning for a while: ate a salad for lunch, did an extra-long workout, and rallied a big group of friends who won’t judge when you eat my body weight in rice and raw fish. You’re so hungry and have been craving sushi for so long that you feel like a kid on Christmas morning.
Stage 2: Anticipation
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After a small amount of deliberation, you place the order and now can sit back and wait for your sushi to arrive. The moment is soon.
Stage 3: Impatience
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You see servers bringing out trays that aren’t yours and your hunger is only growing. Now that you’re so close to all your dreams, this final wait starts to get reeeeeeal tough.
Stage 4: Hanger
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Civil conversation becomes increasingly difficult because the only thought you have is HOW LONG CAN IT TAKE FOR YOUR SUSHI TO COME?
Stage 5: Relief
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At last, the sushi is placed in front of you. The abrupt cessation of the panic you felt over your order being misplaced or some other tragedy that would further delay ecstasy staves off your hunger long enough for you to take a Snapchat. Because if you went to all-you-can-eat sushi and didn’t put it on social media, did you even go?
Stage 6: Savagery
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You attack the sushi with such vehemence that it only takes you and your friends seven minutes to eat the two extremely full platters that were placed in front of you. You don’t even care if other people in the restaurant were looking.
Stage 7: Overconfidence
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Polishing off those two platters was easy. You can definitely go ahead and make another huge order. I’m always that person whose stomach lags behind their head and suggests adding an extra two orders of the salmon lover, more nigiri, and trying that slightly suspicious sounding eel roll that no one ends up eating but me. This stage is my downfall.
Stage 8: Apprehension
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As you wait around for your next order, your brain starts to catch up with your stomach, and you realize that you’re actually kind of full. Maybe you shouldn’t have ordered both the spider and godzilla rolls…
Stage 9: Sadness
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The platter is put down, and as you start to eat, it slowly becomes apparent that willpower might not be enough to get you through the sushi. Each bite is a supreme struggle to scarf down. How could something that brought you so much happiness now be so painful? And why does the sushi keep coming? How much did you order?
Stage 10: Pain
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You stand up, and all the rice you ate that formed a cement-like lump in your stomach becomes very apparent. Walking is a struggle, talking is a struggle, thinking is a struggle. Your new goal? Don’t throw up.
Despite being in pain before you go out to sushi (because you’re so hungry), while you eat your sushi (the 10 stages that make an emotional roller coaster) and after you eat sushi (food coma gone too far), you keep going back. I mean, just look at it.
Photo by Daphne Chen