I spent no less than 168 hours preparing for my first ever trip to a Hibachi restaurant last Friday night. I couldn’t focus on work all week, was too busy breaking down film and working on form. I dreamed about nothing other than sake, shrimp, fire, and the smell of spilt drinks. I watched YouTube hype videos. I even looked into changing my name to something a bit more culturally in-tune. The whole fucking thing.
So, when I walked in that front door and sat down at the Hibachi grill, I thought the only possible outcome was me putting on a clinic on how to let a strange man hurl food and beverages down my throat from several meters away.
Boy was I wrong…
But first, before I get into how I embarrassed everyone that has ever loved me, let’s take a look at the setup.
My two handsome, burly boys were across from me causing distraction after distraction with their dashing looks:
Then, to my right, we had a family who looked like Carole Baskin and a construction worker made a son who went the “indie band that operates out of their garage and have 12 streams total on SoundCloud” route:
The crowd made me a bit nervous, sure, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Still cool as a refrigerated cucumber at this point.
But, as we all know, when you’re at Hibachi the drinks start flowing. A mai tai, and a beer, and 34 shots of sake, and another beer had me feeling loose. In hindsight, a bit too loose. We went a little heavy on the Wd-40, if you will. Despite all of that, though, I was still feeling confident enough to catch any food and drinks thrown my way.
And then I saw the fire:
It was right then, after the room was basically engulfed in flames and countless fire code regulations ignored, that I thought about all the tweets I had been sending leading up to this moment. And how I told my billions and billions of followers I’d be catching everything thrown my way. It was that exact moment I started sweating.
Now here is exactly what happened:
My friend John goes 1-2. Catches his zucchini on the second attempt no problem.
My friend Will also goes 1-2. The boys are sitting pretty at 50%.
My friend Whit also goes 1-2, but does it in style with an acrobatic tongue catch. Impressive.
My friend Christian gets his on the first try. Uh oh…
Then I’m up. The last one in the group, with the entire restaurant world watching me. The tweets once again ran through my mind. Carole Baskin across the table ran through my mind. Making my very dead (yet still supportive) parents proud at what I can do with my mouth ran through my mind. The chef then reared back and fired off a zucchini at me.
0-1.
No big deal. We got the next one. 50% is a fine stat line. He throws again…
0-2.
My face turns red. My heart sinks. My penis shrivels inside my body.
The chef, begrudgingly and reluctantly, gives a third try.
Everyone in the establishment knows this is my last opportunity. I muster all the intestinal fortitude that I have left in me. He flicks up a third zucchini…
0-3.
Shame. Shame! Shame! SHAME! SHAME!
And so that was my first Hibachi experience. 10/10 but also 0/10 would recommend.
I leave you with my Tweets leading up to and after finding out I don’t have the clutch gene:
RobDark 