Adventures in Eating Out

Today my dad got a bee in his bonnet to try out a new restaurant called Hibachi Grill. He loves Japanese restaurants, or rather, he loves Japanese restaurants where the chef cooks at your table. He wants nothing to do with sushi, which is my favorite food, and this is fine because his wife and other son want nothing to do with sushi either. Neither does my son. Or my wife. So off to Hibachi Grill we went.

I tried pointing out that the ad seemed to me a bit--in the parlance of my brother--sketch. I mean it describes a restaurant that is a "Sushi Buffet" that also has "a HIBACHI and GRILL section where you can select your favorites and we will cook them for you on the HIBACHI at no additional charge." How about that? A restaurant that will cook your food for you at no additional charge. Pretty good! Or at least I thought so until I flipped the circular ad coupon from which I got this copy to the back side where the prices were.  Guess how much for dinner at Hibachi Grill Sushi Buffet. Go ahead and guess. I'll wait.

Give up?

$7.99.

Oooooo-kay. Yes Virginia, I realize we are in Virginia and things aren't supposed to cost as much as they do in California, but eight bucks for a sushi buffet? Really? Um...here's my thing. There are things I will skimp on. Things I'll look for a deal on. Sushi is not one of those things. Why? Because I understand that sushi grade fish costs a certain amount, and if somebody is charging eight bucks for a buffet of it, they're gonna have to cut costs somewhere. And that somewhere is eventually going to be on the quality and freshness of the raw food I'm about to ingest. No thanks. Sushi is a calculated risk as it is. It's something I dearly love, but it is inherently a risk to eat raw fish. I don't need to up the ante.

But, what the heck, Dad wanted to try something new. I figured I'd just steer clear of the sushi.

Turned out not to be an issue. The place wasn't open for business yet, as we found when we got to the front door. Puts out coupons as happy as you please. Coupons that expire in four days. Can't be bothered to be open for business yet, though.  Maybe consider giving us a clue that you're not open yet in your ad. Maybe? Just something to consider, Mr. Hibachi.

So Sandi and Pap-Pap scrambled and came up with a new plan, a different Japanese place with Hibachi cooking at which they'd eaten in the past. Kiernan, for his part, was pretty excited. He figured for a brief moment that the closed restaurant meant we would all have to settle for his favorite place, Burger King. Sorry buddy...no way.

We headed to the new place and had a great time. The top picture is Kiernan and Mason watching the antics of our chef with delight, with my dad watching them.

Before you judge this to be just another of my crappy pictures, let me lend some context. This is the moment in the meal when the cool hibachi chef paints a smiley face with cooking oil from his squeeze bottle on his grill then sets a flame to it. WOOSH! Next...

When those flames kicked up, a split-second after the initial surprise Kiernan slid out of his seat and backed away from the table. We're talking lightning speed here folks. He nearly wound up in the lap of the nice lady sitting at the hibachi table behind him. She smiled and took it in stride, offering to let him join her party. He declined, wedging himself behind the protective shoulder of Pap-Pap.

Overall it was a very nice meal, and a great time.

***

Addendum:

This morning we started our day by going to a lovely little donut place in Gloucester, a new place that is one of those new local gems that makes something amazing. It was in a long strip mall that was mostly empty but for three open businesses. All other spaces were vacant. What three stores were open? Well, there's the donut shop, Sunrise Donuts, as I alluded to a moment ago. The others...well...if I didn't know I was in Virginia already...

Anyway, the donuts really were good. Especially if you love actually tasting the lard when you're eating a donut. Mine was a mocha cream donut, and I kept wondering if it was also cream filled. Nope. That's the lard you're tasting. But seriously, it was a sweet little place with a lovely young lady working who was very, very helpful. Unfortunately unlike the ladies at the unlikely ice cream shop/convenience store near Dad & Sandi's house, she could not make coffee to save her life. Oof. Worst cup of coffee ever. However, the great sign on the carafe made up for it.

Ha Ha! They don't know how to use apostrophes in Gloucester! Bunch of rubes!

A sign like this really is a gem. It makes my day a little bit. When you see a sign like this, you don't expect you're going to see a better one in the same day. Remember when I was talking about finding out the Hibachi Grill wasn't yet open for business? We found out when we saw this sign on the door:

Ha Ha again! Funny sign. Yes it's wrong to make fun of people who clearly aren't yet proficient in English...but still, how funny is that sign! Rubes and foreigners...gotta love em!

But wait. Remember how I talked about reading from the circular coupon ad thingy? Remember how I riffed on them putting out coupons without yet being ready for business? Remember my mini-rant about sushi buffet prices and my little joke about no extra charge for cooking your food? I read and re-read that little coupon thingy. I pored over it looking for clues about the restaurant. It seems I missed one teensy little detail.

Right there, in bright yellow letters. At the very top of the ad.

My apologies, sweet donut girl. My apologies, folks who are about to open a new business. Your little grammar foibles have nothing on my idiocy. You have excuses for not being able to write perfect English. For my inability to read it, I have none.