I Let AI Pick My Meal at an “All-You-Can-(Ish)” Sushi Spot
I Let AI Pick My Meal at an “All-You-Can-(Ish)” Sushi Spot
🎧 Listening while I wrote this
There’s a moment in every adult life where you realize you’ve made too many decisions today.
Not big decisions. I’m not talking about “sell the house” decisions or “why does the basement smell like a 2003 gym bag” decisions. I mean the small ones. The constant ones. The ones that show up disguised as a normal Tuesday: What do you want to eat?
And this is how I ended up at Ohana, staring at an “all you can (ish)” menu, and doing the most modern thing I could think of:
I let AI pick my meal.
The Rules of the Game (Because My Brain Loves a System)
Ohana’s menu is one of those beautiful laminated sheets that says: “You can have it all,” and then quietly adds: “But we’re still watching you.” It’s the restaurant version of freedom with a seatbelt.
So I made it simple:
- AI chooses the order.
- I eat what arrives (within basic human boundaries).
- No overthinking once the choice is made. No “well, maybe just one more roll…” bargaining with myself like a raccoon outside a locked dumpster.
This wasn’t about being picky or being fancy. It was about outsourcing one tiny decision and seeing what happened when I stopped trying to “optimize” dinner like it was a spreadsheet.
Round One: The Warm-Up That Tells You If You’re in the Right Place
First came the miso soup. And yes—miso soup is basically a mood. It’s warm, salty, gentle, and it shows up like a little edible handshake that says, “You can relax. Nobody’s about to hand you a trifold pamphlet about ‘mouthfeel.’”
Photo note: A white mug of miso with chopped green onion floating like tiny life rafts. Simple. Clean. Exactly what my brain needed.
Photo caption
Miso soup: the calm intro music before the sushi starts making decisions.
Then the AI’s next move landed: gyoza. Two little fried dumplings with a glossy, browned crust, served with dipping sauce that smells like soy and promises consequences in the best way.
They were crisp on the outside, soft inside, and the sauce was doing that perfect salty-sweet thing where you’re not sure if you’re hungry or just emotionally supported.
Photo caption
Two gyoza. One sauce. Zero regrets.
Round Two: The “All-You-Can-(Ish)” Reality Check
Here’s what I’ve learned about “all you can eat” in the real world: it’s less a challenge, and more a relationship. If you show up trying to prove something, the restaurant can feel it. Somewhere, a manager gets a small alert on a dashboard. A light blinks.
So when the next plates came, I wasn’t trying to win. I was trying to enjoy.
First: sweet & sour chicken (or that cousin of it that every Asian-American menu knows by heart). Golden bites coated in orange-red sauce, shiny like they just got out of a caramel bath. Comfort food with a tie on.
Second: shrimp tempura. One single shrimp on the plate like a crispy exclamation point. The batter was light and crackly, and the shrimp had that perfect bite where it’s not rubbery and not mushy—just clean and sweet.
Photo caption
Sweet, crunchy, saucy, and one brave shrimp tempura doing solo work.
This is where AI quietly did something smart: it balanced the meal. Warm soup. Fried bite. Saucy comfort. Crisp seafood. It wasn’t random. It felt like a person who’s eaten food before made the call.
Round Three: The Rolls (Where Things Get Serious)
Next plate: a clean, simple roll—salmon + avocado. Six pieces, neat and tidy, with ginger and wasabi sitting off to the side like two bouncers waiting for someone to get bold.
Salmon and avocado is one of those combos that feels like it was approved by a committee of sensible adults. It’s rich, soft, not too loud. A roll that says, “I’m here for a good time, not to create a core memory.”
Photo caption
Salmon + avocado: the ‘reliable friend’ of sushi.
And then—because the universe loves contrast—AI sent in the heavy hitters.
I got a plate with two specialty-style rolls that looked like they were designed to win an Instagram election.
- Roll A: a deep-fried, tempura-style roll with drizzles of spicy mayo and eel sauce. Crunchy outside, warm inside, the kind of roll that makes you stop talking mid-sentence because your mouth is busy filing paperwork.
- Roll B: a “tuna stack” style roll—thicker pieces topped with tuna and sliced jalapeño, then hit with spicy mayo and a darker sauce. It looked spicy. It looked bold. It looked like it had opinions.
Photo caption
AI understood the assignment: calm start, big finish.
Here’s the thing: if you asked me to pick, I might have played it safe. I’d have stayed in the “salmon avocado” lane and called it a day.
But AI wasn’t trying to protect my personality. It was trying to build a sequence. And that’s what made this fun: it turned dinner into a tiny story—intro, buildup, plot twist, fireworks.
What I Learned (Besides “Yes, I Would Order That Again”)
Letting AI pick my meal didn’t remove my freedom. It removed my decision fatigue.
And that matters more than we admit.
Because a lot of us are walking around with brains that are basically web browsers with 46 tabs open. Half of them are playing sound. Two are frozen. One is a “helpful” pop-up asking if you want to subscribe to something you didn’t even read.
When you hand one small choice to a tool—AI, a coin flip, your spouse, whatever—you’re not giving up control. You’re clearing space. You’re letting the night be a night instead of a negotiation.
And in an “all-you-can-(ish)” restaurant, where the menu is huge and the temptation is endless, the best strategy isn’t “eat everything.” It’s: eat the right things in the right order.
Tonight, AI did exactly that.
Dessert: The Quiet Victory Lap
Finally, the closer: green tea ice cream.
That pale green scoop that tastes like “dessert” and “I’m a little sophisticated” at the same time. Creamy, lightly earthy, not too sweet. It’s the kind of dessert that ends the meal without turning it into a sugar sprint.
Photo caption
Green tea ice cream: the gentle landing after the sushi turbulence.
If You Want to Try This: My Simple “AI Picks Dinner” Playbook
If you want to run this experiment yourself, here’s a clean way to do it without making your server hate you:
- Start with one soup or starter. Something warm and light (miso is perfect).
- Add one fried item. Gyoza or shrimp tempura—something crunchy for contrast.
- Choose one “safe” roll. Salmon/avocado, tuna/avocado, something stable.
- Then pick one “bold” specialty roll. Sauces, jalapeño, deep-fried—go for the fun.
- End with a simple dessert. Green tea ice cream is a great reset button.
Pro tip: If the place is truly “all you can eat,” keep your rounds reasonable. The goal is a great meal, not a personal documentary called “Man vs. Menu: The Sodium Wars.”
Two Quick CTAs (Because This Is How We Keep the Lights On)
If you like these little real-life experiments—AI in the wild, not just AI in a lab—share this post with someone who also gets tired of choosing dinner. It helps more than you think.
And if you want more Deep Dive AI stories, reviews, and “let’s test it for real” moments:
- YouTube: Deep Dive AI on YouTube (and yes, you can subscribe here)
- Spotify: Deep Dive AI Podcast on Spotify
Because if AI can pick my sushi, it can probably help with your next decision too. Or at least make it fun.
Final exhale: Sometimes the smartest move isn’t picking the perfect option—it’s picking anything and enjoying it like you meant it.
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