There's something about a Hispanic guy pretending to be an
authentic Japanese Hibachi chef that makes me feel American.
To celebrate the first week of summer vacation, I took my boys to Benihana for dinner. The smell
of MSG greeted us in the parking lot. No
less than 5 excessively smiley (most assuredly not Japanese) hostesses bowed to
us at the heavily bamboo-ed entrance. Within
moments, my kids were wearing menu hats.
Seated with us was another typical American family comprised
of a Mom and Dad - the Dad's young son from his previous marriage, the Mom's young
daughter from her previous marriage, and somebody's step-niece visiting from
Mexico. We all got along swimmingly as
the chef made a choo-choo train out of onion rings my children won't eat.
Benihana is one of those places that sounds soooo fun when
you're in the car driving there.
As you're being seated with strangers, you hear yourself say
"That's Hot!" for the first time and start to question your
restaurant selection. Neither of your
children want to sit next to strangers and thanks to their lack of volume
control, the strangers now know it. The
table is an odd shape, so suddenly your children are sitting together, arms
length from a burn unit visit, and you are elbow-elbow with someone else's teenage
Mexican step niece. As the waitress offers your children
coca-cola, you get a text from your husband.
Flight canceled. Uch. At
that moment your toddler discovers the chopsticks.
You review the menu choices and suddenly recall that though
it's never on the menu, every time you go to Benihana, you wind up with Hibachi
diarrhea. Meanwhile, your son just ordered a shit load
of million dollar shrimp.
Ok, back to me. The
chef makes the fried rice egg spin round and round while I am flooded with
memories of pre-prom dinners 20 years ago.
These dudes were doing this egg spinning thing way back then. He cracks the egg uncleanly. Shell goes everywhere. Glad I didn't order the fried rice.
"Was that supposed to happen?" my
son asks. "Shhh," I say, not
wanting to hurt chef feelings.
He flips
shrimp tails into his hat. (Well, one
made it in, I honestly couldn't tell you where the rest landed.) He does some sort of percussion routine with
his salt and pepper shakers. My younger
son imitates him with a full glass of water and I'm thinking that maybe the
folks who wrote Fela got inspired
here.
The chef finishes with a flourish and my kids applaud. "Woo-Hoo!" the little one cheers. "That was awesome!" the big one
confirms. They push their veggies aside
with their jerry-rigged chopsticks and gobble up their meals all smiles. "Summer Vacation is the best ever!"
My clothes smell distinctly of teriyaki sauce, but my
children are happy - and therefore by some sort of scientific theory - I'm
happy. Which is lucky for me,
considering what I ordered.
I can't say I'll be racing back to the least Japanese
Japanese restaurant in America anytime soon, but I do know I'll be back. Mom points are nothing to sneeze at.
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