Hibachi!

Sometimes I get the feeling that when a Japanese chef has been very, very bad, they send him to America to work off his penance serving hibachi. 

"You will go to the United States and cook the same handful of dishes day in, day out, while making corny jokes and singing bits of old pop songs. You will watch the old people and small children laugh but the teenagers groan as if their soul is being removed with a crowbar. You will have to get a dozen orders to the right people or there will be trouble. Sometimes drunken fools will try to get into the act and you have to prevent them from falling onto the grill. Stunts with fire and knives are mandatory. When you have suffered enough to atone for your sins, you will be permitted to return and begin your career again at the bottom. So be it!"

Or maybe not. Maybe the men (not entirely but almost entirely men) enjoy the atmosphere of cooking with an audience. After all, in many restaurants you make the same dishes over and over, and in many comedy clubs the acts make the same jokes over and over. Why not combine them? Could be fun. 

The hibachi restaurants I've been to usually pack a minimum number of people around each table so that the dinner-and-a-show will have a party feel even if you're combining people from a romantic date, a small birthday party, and some dude who just showed up hungry. You can't cook like that for just one or two people. And I must say I've never had a bad meal from one of those places. But I’ve always wanted to wash everything I'm wearing and take a shower when I get home, because everything smells like the restaurant. 

So here's to you, hibachi chefs, and thanks for making great food in a fun atmosphere. And don't worry about the teenagers. It's not you. They're like that with everybody.