Lunch at Arisu

Melinda, Young Wha, Ken and Joe.

I organized a lunch for our dishwashing crew from the Out of the Cold program at Knox Presbyterian Church. It runs each year from the beginning of November to the end of April. So we just finished.

We debated whether we should have AYCE Japanese or Korean. Melinda and I are fans of sushi. Especially the all-you-can-eat kind. But Joe doesn't eat raw stuff and Young Wha likes Korean food (probably because she's Korean). So we went with that.

Originally they were thinking about going to a different restaurant. But I had seen a voucher for $40 worth of food for $20 for Arisu on one of those discount coupon sites. So I convinced everyone to go there. I set up a Doodle.com poll and asked people which date would best suit them. Saturday, June 1st won out.

It was about the time I was going to call the restaurant to make reservations when I read the fine print on the voucher - It wasn't valid on Fridays or Saturdays. I asked the others if they wanted to change the date, but we figured it would be too much trouble, so we kept it.

The Saturday we met was a nice day. It was sunny and warm out. I walked down from my condo. It's about 6 kilometres or so. I arrived a bit early - maybe at around 12:20 p.m. Melinda was next followed shortly by Joe who rode his bike over from Bloor and Dufferin.

Young Wha came next followed by Ken (who lives near me). He was a little late because he missed his first bus to the subway (which was actually closed for repair work). He had to take a shuttle bus down Yonge to Bloor.

We waited a bit longer for Sam, but he never showed up. It turns out that he mixed up the date. We had a good lunch anyway. Young Wha educated everyone on what everything on the menu was. I usually get the same thing (bibimbap), but Joe rarely eats Korean, so he needed some help.

It was nice seeing everyone again. The next time we'll probably meet up is in November when the program starts up again.