My friend, Lisa, a sorority sister from GW, lives in NJ so when we meet it's usually on the Upper West Side. I logged on to Open Table to see what new places I could find, and I stumbled across Kouzan on Amsterdam. 4 stars and an available table worked for me so we met there.
We sat at the bar, enjoyed wine and prosecco and laughed - a lot! An elderly gentleman walked in who she thought she knew, along with two of his friends. She approached him and made friendly conversation in a brief round of Jewish geography...the "how do I know you" game of champions...but it turned out he just had a familiar face.
After a sweet hijiki salad, miso eggplant (that was really fabulous) and some vegan sushi for me, tuna tartare for her, we asked for the check. We had laughed, a lot, and the man and his friends were clearly entertained by us, but it was such a beautiful night we decided to continue telling stories outside. It just seemed a shame not to walk around for a while before we each headed home.
We asked for the check but to our surprise, there was none! The man had picked up our tab! We went to the table to protest, but he insisted. The woman with him said, "Giving feels just as good as receiving. Now you can pay it forward." We were so touched and we surely will.
