Friday Night Hibachi

Is there anyone on this planet who doesn’t love hibachi? Seriously, can you name someone who doesn’t?

I’ll wait while you brainstorm everyone you know.

Oh, wait. Have you met Lou? Because he doesn’t like it.

And three of our four kids have never been. So a hibachi dinner has been on our bucket list for a while now. 

But we’ve been stalling. Partly because it’s expensive and partly because we have such picky eaters. But suddenly, Lou’s been eating his meals with chopsticks for some reason. Excuse me, “chompsticks.” I think just because he found some in the back of the utensil drawer and in his usual spirit of adventure combined with his “I can do anything” mindset, he fully embraced the new skill.

For meatballs. Spaghetti. Waffles. Everything.

So Tighe and I took stock of our picky eaters. Nate pretty much inhales everything at this point, likely due to his constant activity level and his body’s preparation for an adolescent growth spurt. And Sam’s trailing close behind. Lou’s been a pretty adventurous eater ever since he started eating solid foods, plus he’s always up for an outing.

It’s really just Tess who’s a picky eater holdout. On most nights at dinner, she surveys the spread on the dining room table and gives me a disgusted eye roll. Then she excuses herself to head to the fridge for some cheese and a banana. Something about that combination must be working for her because she’s growing. 

Anyway, as soon as the weather gets cold and college football gets good, Tighe always craves Chinese food or Thai food or Japanese food, so on our first chilly Friday morning, I called and made a reservation for six people that evening. 

The kids were pumped. They love eating at restaurants. But it soon became apparent that we need to start venturing away from our usuals: Culvers, Chick Fil-a, pizza, tacos, and Third Street Social, where all four kids order chicken and waffles, no matter whether it’s brunch, lunch, or dinner. 

As expected, we were about 4 minutes late for our six o’clock reservation. Not bad, actually. 

And in true hibachi fashion, we were seated with another family: mom, dad, and a little girl about Tess’s age.

Perfect, I thought. I assigned seats so that Tess was seated next to the Other Little Girl. Then Lou, Sam, Nate, me, and Tighe. 

Tess made it clear that she wasn’t thrilled with the arrangement, but I couldn’t expose this Other Little Girl to the boys. She’s an only child. She was donning a very expensive looking peacoat with some sort of fur lining and sipping a shirley temple. She was not ready for Lou or Sam. 

If Tess is Wednesday Addams, in her gray hoodie, crimped blond hair and signature plastic cat ear headband, this Other Little Girl is Amanda Buckman. Chipper, cheerful, bubbly, agreeable, eager. While Tess is miserable, depressed, melancholic. 

Actual photo of the other little girl and Tess.

You know, not really, but that’s the aura she gives off. The contrast between the two girls was delightful to watch.

And it’s like Tess read the whole script ahead of time and arrived at the restaurant in character. Because she performed great.

Scowling. Staring straight ahead. Ignoring the friendly advances from the Other Little Girl and her mother. The mother who, after we made introductions, started off by saying, “I could never have this many children,” as her daughter ordered sushi and instructed the chef to prepare her filet “rare.”

Candid Photo of The OTHER LITTLE GIRL AND HER PARENTS.

Don’t get me wrong, they were very nice and cordial, but after a few minutes I got the impression that we were playing the part of the weird homeschool family, who suddenly, perhaps carelessly, found themselves overrun with children. Children they couldn’t afford and didn’t have the time to raise properly. Or teach to speak. Or instruct in proper restaurant etiquette.

We were coming across as unsophisticated. Uncultured. Bush league. Monolingual. And just plain weird. 

Sam was crouched like a gargoyle at the corner of the table, stabbing his fork into the porcelain plate and sipping alternately from one of the two sodas he had ordered. Lou was wide-eyed, anxiously scanning the restaurant, wary of the blasts/torpedoes of hot flames shooting up from the grill tops at nearby tables. Like a skittish puppy who’d never been outside of his own house before. 

“Uh, Nate. Look!” he said, nervously calling on his big brother, the only hibachi veteran among them, for reassurance. But Nate was hungry! He was totally dialed in on the pending steak and rice feast that he was about to inhale. 

Tess was staring straight ahead, actively ignoring the Other Little Girl and her Mom. Which prompted the Other Little Girl to begin speaking to her in French, as though perhaps it was a language barrier that prevented them from being besties. Of course she was fluent in French.

The Mom, feigning embarrassment, decided she needed to intervene. Like a good helicopter parent. 

“My favorite color is green!” she said with too much enthusiasm. “What’s your favorite color?”

After an uncomfortable pause, during which even I started to wonder if Tess was deaf in one ear, Tess turned to face the Mom, and replied with an exaggerated amount of cheeriness, “Pink!”

Then immediately turned back to her stone faced scowl, once again staring straight ahead.

But the Mom was unfazed and continued peppering her with icebreaker questions. I know Tess wants to be a veterinarian some day, but she might want to consider a career in espionage because any state secret would be safe with her.

The Mom seemed to ooze sympathy for Tess. She’d admitted earlier that her daughter is spoiled, that hibachi is a standard Friday night for her, instead of a novel outing like it was for our kids. 

“This poor girl,” I imagined her saying to herself, “all these mongrel brothers and she doesn’t even know how to speak. Or behave in a restaurant. She’s missing out on life!”  

Tighe and I, at the opposite end of the table, couldn't decide whether to be embarrassed or amused. I’m half kidding, we were pretty amused. But I was also desperate for the chef to come and begin preparing our food. That’s why we’re here after all.

But when he arrived, the drama shifted from Tess to Lou.

Because it turns out he doesn’t like fire. 

When the chef first drenched the grill top in oil and then set fire to it, the flames of which shot up towards the ceiling, Lou hit the deck. He dove off his chair under the table. Sam had to coax him back up and assure him it was okay. 

He looked around at his tablemates and, noting that everyone else was laughing and having a good time, he started laughing, too. A nervous laugh. Slow and slightly exaggerated, keeping one cautious eye on the chef at all times. He definitely didn’t relax the rest of the night. 

In fact, he started muttering to himself. 

“Is Lou Greenhalgh gonna have to choke a bitch?”

Okay, in reality, the background noise in the restaurant was too great to hear what he was saying, but we like to imagine it was that. 

He didn’t find the shrimp toss antics amusing. He didn’t find it funny when the chef started messing with Sam, pretending to deliver Sam’s rice to his plate, but only delivering about a grain or two at a time. And, hungry as always, he didn’t appreciate that the food was served still steaming, too hot to actually eat. 

And despite our reassurances, he had to dive for cover a few more times during the night. Once during the flaming onion volcano. And again during a surprise shrimp toss. For extra credit, apparently.

As we drove home that night, Tighe asked them what they thought of the dinner. Nate and Sam loved it. They enjoyed the food and the entertainment and were pretty excited about our four to-go boxes stacked on my lap. 

Tess, believe it or not, also enjoyed herself. She said she’d love to go back. I don’t know whether she enjoyed putting on a performance that messes with people’s sense of reality, manipulating them to question everything they thought they knew about human kind. Or if she enjoyed the four strands of lo mein she consumed,

Only Lou, after everyone else chimed their approval, waited a pause, and said, simply, “No.”

“You didn’t like it, Lou?”

“No, and I never want to go back.”