Sumo is my favorite restaurant. Ever.
The food is great, I like the atmosphere and I enjoy the show. I've seen the routine a billion times but I still enjoy it. It's kinda like Chuck-E-Cheese for grownups, but the food is good.
I have my favorite chef and my not-so-favorite chefs but no matter which I get, I always have a good time. I've never walked out of Sumo feeling bad. Too full, maybe, but not bad.
Well, there's a first time for everything.
Raw, Casey and I had reservations to eat at Sumo. Our reservations were scheduled at 8:30 and we arrived ten minutes early.
The place was packed. I had to wait twenty minutes just to let the hostess know we had arrived. Half an hour after that, we were finally seated.
I know, it seems crazy to wait even that long for a table. But Sumo is good stuff and it was getting late to find somewhere else to go. And the people seated with us had been waiting for two to three hours. Now, that's crazy!
Needless to say, the couple to our right and family to our left weren't the happiest of customers. But they were sucking it up and attempting to be quite pleasant.
We sat and ate our soup and salad while watching the chefs down beer after shot of sake after beer. The couple and the family exchanged nervous glances while they guessed which drunken chef would be throwing knives in front of them.
The table to our right was full of young and quite marinated friends. They erupted in whoops of delight when they saw a chef emerging with raw food.
The chef was my least favorite. He's this old guy who is always grumpy unless my mom is around. So they could have him. I'd gladly wait for another chef.
He stopped, basked in their applause, then informed him they were unlucky. He had to serve this other table. And pointed at my table. Apparently, we were the "lucky" ones.
Chef made his way to our table, put the food down and screamed "WASAABIIIIIIIIII!!!"
Then he began to make his rounds. See how in the picture, Chef is entertaining people at a table? That's how the evening went. That's not our table.
Chef proceeded to cook for us, while screaming in our faces. Most of the time, it was "wasabi" but other times, I couldn't quite make out what he was saying. Whenever he would slap another gob of margarine into the food, we were supposed to yell "Bam!" a la Emeril.
Because we weren't reacting the way the other tables were, Chef started getting grumpy at us. "C'mon! You want have fun?"
Then he started chastising us for not drinking. Even though some of us had drinks. Yes, he was drunk enough to not notice the color of liquid in my glass was dark. "You only drink water!!!"
When he discovered the couple to our right was drinking sake, he started trying to goad the man into drinking with him. "Maybe when we're done eating and you haven't killed us."
Ouch!
That's when chef turned into mean ol' Uncle Frank, drunk at Thanksgiving. "You don't want to have fun? You don't want to drink? No happy? Fine. I cook."
So he cooks the food and doesn't look up at us. Knowing the routine like I do, I tried to use it to get him interested in us again. As he put the zucchini and squash onto the grill, I said "Yellow banana green banana!!!"
"No, I just cook." Then he cut up the onion usually reserved to make a volcano.
Down went some more margarine. The kid tries the "Bam!" thing. Chef's reply?
"Yeah yeah yeah. Bam. Whatever."
This is when I got mad. I could handle everything up to this point. But when there's a kid at the table who has waited this long for the show, give him a show. Don't be a dick.
One of the waiters came over with a beer for Chef and he starts slurring at us about how that's his man! Then he turned into our angry drunk girlfriend and started flirting with all the other tables.
Did I mention we haven't gotten all our food yet?
When he finally comes back, he grumbles about how we're not fun. How in Wichita, people don't know how to have fun. But Chicago, Kansas City . . .those are fun cities.
The woman to our right actually apologized. "We're sorry! We're just hungry! We've been waiting for two and a half hours!"
You shouldn't have to apologize for waiting hours to be seated and then acting perfectly calm while your food is being prepared. You're paying for the meal, not insults! There's no need to apologize!
I'm sure we probably should have just gotten up and left. But we were hungry and the food was still good. Plus, we wouldn't have had the pleasure of watching the manager tell him with sign language to "Wrap it up and get over here!"
We went to the bowling alley across the way after dinner to hang out. When we came back for our cars, guess who came driving through. Yeah that's right--our pal, Chef.
"Hey! You guys all right?"
Casey approached his car while Raw and I shrank closer to the curb. "Yeah. You get in trouble?"
"No no no. Where you going now?"
Can you believe that? He tells us we're "no fun" and then wants to hang out with us???
We sent him on his way and then went ours. I told Raw and Casey to have a safe trip. "And watch out for drunk driving chefs!"
ps--Yes that is a red jumpsuit that girl is wearing. And yes she does have her foot up on her Mt. Dew-drinking boyfriend's lap. She's classy!
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