My best friend from college, Sean, is a relatively skinny kind of guy who doesn’t eat very much. I’d be surprised if his average daily caloric intake exceeded 1,200 calories.
When he lived on the campus at Occidental College, he was required to carry a meal plan card that permitted him to purchase about $1,000 worth of food in the cafeteria and cafe in a given semester. At the end of the semester, whatever funds were left in the account were forfeited.
After a while, it occured to Sean that making a $600 donation to the school at the end of each semester was awfully foolish. Since I lived off-campus and had to actually pay for my food, he started buying me lunch and dinner on a regular basis. At the end of each semester we would purchase literally cases of diet soda, juice, and other goodies.
After Sean spent several hundred dollars on my behalf, I owed him a favor. I offered to take him out to dinner. He requested that we eat at Urasawa, formerly Sushi Ginzu-Ko.
Urasawa is reportedly the most expensive restaurant in Southern California. We enjoyed a price fixe meal for over two and a half hours. We ate eel liver, Kobe beef, sea urchin, and fugu. After eating roughly fifty tiny dishes, we walked out several pounds heavier and nearly $700 lighter, moaning with epicurean ecstasy. It was worth every single last cent.
