For those of you who don't know what Tepanyaki is, it's a kitschy version of Benihana. For those of you who don't know what Benihana is, it's the "Asian Hooters."
So we order our food, eat our sushi appetizers, and finally our chef comes out to begin preparing our meal. He spritzes oil on the grill and cranks that puppy on. Automatically, the oil starts sizzling and popping. Lolli gets wide-eyed and says "Oooh! Hot!" Chef smiles and says,"Yup! Hot! Just like you!" Creeper??? Maybe...
Once the grill is humming, the real show begins. Dousing the grill with more oil, Chef takes a lighter and sets the entire thing aflame. Lālea straight up LOSES it! She's not scared. She's absolutely horrified. She's practically falling out of her high chair, trying to climb up into my lap, over my shoulder, and out the door.
I take her out, rub her back, and tell her everything is fine. She's not having it. She's still screaming bloody murder. So I excuse ourselves from the table and walk out into the lobby to show her the salt water fish tank. But, there was no consoling that child. Chef had quite literally scared the crap out of her.
I change her diaper, get her calmed down, and look over to our table to see that Chef is pretty much done with all the cooking. He's just cleaning up and wiping down the grill top. I start to walk us back over to the table and Lolli starts bawling again, just as loudly. "Hot! Hot! Hot! All pau! Hot!" (Pau is done in Hawaiian. She says "all pau" when she's finished eating and when she wants you to stop doing something to her that she doesn't like--i.e. excessive tickling or making her take a nap.)
We spend about 15 more minutes back at the fish tank and running around the restaurant lobby. I finally coax her back to the table, since Chef has finally gone. She crawls reluctantly back into her chair and proceeds to eat all my fried rice like nothing ever happened!!
Thank goodness we went to Outback last night. I don't think I could have handled another flame-induced traumatic experience.
1 comment:
Aww Lolli sounds adorable I hoped she wasn't traumatized, I remember the same kind of fear for thunder. I refused to go outside when it rained at about 4 years old because I lost consciousness many times during thunderstorms. Hope you enjoyed your meal though!!
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