Benihana Break Up
Benihana was not the place to break up with someone.
It wasn’t my plan that night to end a relationship at one of the most dangerous restaurant chains in the world, but something about ordering a steamed vegetable plate at Benihana really sent me over the edge. Was it shallow of me? Maybe. But if you cant risk your diet for one night to enjoy the mediocre gastronomy of an oil doused steak that is being cooked right in front of your eyes, then what excitement will our relationship have?
I broke the news while she instagrammed a video of Chef Hiroki cutting zuccini. She instagrammed it even though you could hear “I’m breaking up with you,” in the background. She went silent. Chef Hiroki went silent. The family of five celebrating Todd’s tenth birthday went silent. The server who just brought me brown rice instead of fried rice went silent.
The series of events unfolded like a fresh onion volcano, but I added too much oil and blew the sucker up.
She yelled “saki bomb this mother fucker!” and threw her hot saki at me, searing through the cotton of my Vince shirt. I deserved that.
Chef Hiroki stopped mid shrimp slice to watch a bowl of his fried rice leave her hand and crash onto my head. He smiled and cheered as wasabi was added to the mix, burning my nostrils and blinding me.
It was the at the point she grabbed the stainless steel hibachi spatula that I knew it was time for the check. They never offered me green tea ice cream, but I think it would have been rude to take ice cream without even getting to taste Chef Hiroki’s meal.
I tossed a hundred onto the table and ran out while she attempted to hibachi me into a million small, cookable pieces. As I screamed in the agony of burning saki crotch and wasabi rice in my eyes, people joined in thinking I was a birthday singer.
When I got into my car and locked the doors, I sat in silent pain as she took the spatula to my Corolla. I contemplated at that moment if it was necessary to ruin such an electrifying dinner show ,that is fun for the whole family, just to break up with a girl I had only dated for a month. But my own conscious took over, grabbed me by the chin, looked me square in my wasabi eyes, and whispered “at least you don’t have to deal with a sick fuck who orders steamed vegetables at a Benihana.”