Today I met up with Clifton for lunch at the Zen Plaza Sushi Bar in District 1. Despite being walking distance from Zen Plaza, this was my first visit to Sushi Bar 2 is over a year. For once, I remembered to take some photos of the food I normally order there which includes the Ebi Ten Maki sushi rolls and Sakae Furai fish dish. One noticeable thing about the Sushi Bar over the last three years is that the size of the portions have gradually gotten smaller.
I took some photos today to compare with the portion sizes from my visit to the Zen Plaza Sushi Bar and Sushi Bar 3 back in 2009. Changing the portion sizes of dishes is a yearly norm for Vietnamese restaurants during the Tet holiday season. Prices usually go up as well. Luckily, at the Sushi Bar, the prices are still quite reasonable.
Now lets look at the portion sizes for 2009 and 2012:
2009 Ebi Ten Maki
2012 Ebi Ten Maki
At first I just thought number of portions were smaller but after looking at the 2009 pictures, I realize the portion sizes were smaller. The 2009 portions were bigger and thicker and easily fit on the dish. You will notice on the first photo, I was only given 5 Ebi Ten Makis but they all still fit on the same dish. The above 2012 photo illustrates that this sushi has become smaller. This was the reason I decided to take the photo.
2009 Sakae Furai
2012 Sakae Furai
A little harder to tell. They look about the same with these two photos (I ate once fish already in the 2012 photo) but the 2009 portions are much bigger. I remember towards the later half of 2009 was when I started to complain that this dish got smaller.