konbanwa
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I went to a new Japanese restaurant (Hiraku) for dinner tonight, and it was mildly interesting. It was standard fare– a counter/bar with a sushi chef behind it, some tables along the wall with some Asashi beer placemats for those who don’t know their sushi. The place looked clean, but there was no other customer there. I thought I went to the wrong place at first.
My friend and I ended up both getting nigiri specials, and again, mostly standard fare– a few Cali rolls, salmon, tuna, ebi, etc. The only non-standard item was the scallop, which was fairly tasty. I think this was a bonus since we were the only people in the store. I quickly identified two problems with this place:
1. They were playing very, very bad music. I surely don’t expect (or want) to hear Yanni in a Japanese restaurant. Can I get some jpop?
2. They need customers. They’ve been open for three months, yet it was dead empty. I was beginning to suspect that they lost their business because of fugu poisoning at this point.
After we were done with dinner, a few customers did arrive. One Indian couple kept saying, “Konnichiwa” to the sushi chef, who kept trying to correct him. I mean, we have “Good afternoon” and “Good evening” in English, surely this concept of time-based greetings should be easy to understand. Then the Indian guy kept accusing the chef of being Chinese. The chef got kinda angry, and I was about to burst into laughter at this point.
