Last night we did something we planned on doing for (what Anthony says has been) two years. Jobs, school, and lack of money always hindered any possible trips. We being Zach, Kayla, Anthony, and I. We took a well-deserved trip to Shogun in Monroeville. For the unaware, Shogun is your typical Japanese Hibatchi restaurant, with a little extra class and it costs a little extra cash. I've been there before, and luckily, it was a birthday gift when Kayla and I were dating, so I never had to experience the pain of paying. This time though, we figured it would be mean to split the check at such a nice place, so we went all-in with cash. The question was, how much do we really need?
To prepare, we made a pit stop at the bank on the way, which was a pain in the ass, along with finding Shogun afterwards and doing an unnecessary u-turn that my GPS insisted that I do. It was raining, it was night, I hate driving in the rain at night, etc. What made it worse is A.) I hate driving to/through Monroeville all together and B.) I hate driving in the rain at night on unfamiliar roads. Multilane highways that you really can't tell where the lines are due to much glare from business, street, and car lights and rain drops clinging to car windows. No major problems, but enough of an annoyance to bring up questions such as, "Where the fuck is the lane?" "I dunno, just trust the fucking GPS." Especially on turns and at intersections. Fucking rain.
After turning around once or twice, doing the unnecessary, magic u-turn, and waiting outside, then inside, then outside for Kayla, we got seated. We got seated with a mom/2 sisters/big sister's boyfriend, whom which we were talking about and hoping we wouldn't get seated with. They enjoyed our company, and our conversations about girls shaving, I'm sure. We all tore through the complementary soup and salad, which were good as always, and not too filling.
I wanted my fucking sushi. California rolls... which, I dunno, may technically not be sushi? I don't care, I have been craving them, and even thought I ate 3 of them, they were damn good. A good hold-over until the main fucking event. God damn, was that wait painful.
At once, it all began. I knew shit was going to get ugly when I saw a larger, middle-aged, white guy wheel a cart over to our table/grill. But maybe he is just getting things ready for our cook? No. Anthony took advantage of our (assumably) Pennsylvanian native and told him to surprise him on his meat-cooking. Not medium, not well, not rare. Surprise him. Go fucking kill a cow and bring it in, throw it on a plate. This guy looked just burly enough to where he could probably do so with his bare hands.
This guy never told us his name. He didn't even have a name tag on. He wasn't foreign. We will name him Brice. He looked like a Brice, or a Lloyd, or a Greg. Lighter colored brown or blonde hair, sideburns, some facial hair, etc. He looked like he played football in high school, didn't quite cut it out for the big college circuit, and ended up majoring in Culinary Arts. He never quite worked off those extra lineman pounds. "Dudes, guess what?! I get to be a hibatchi chef at Shogun! When I'm not working, we can go back to my place and play Madden on my fuckin' 360. And I can bring us assloads of good food home from work." Good job Brice, make mom (and yer bros) proud.
Let's get to the bottom line... Brice wasn't too entertaining. Everyone says, "hopefully you don't get the white dude." We got the white dude alright. No questions asked. He choked on pepper and smoke mid-cooking. He made a joke out of it, but the abundance of coughing and arm-flailing was a little unnecessary. Come on, you're a chef. You should be used to this shit. His dices were a little sloppy. His grace wasn't top-notch, he flung a raw slice of carrot on my plate at one point. He diced the shrimp tails off of five or six shrimp, but it looked like he accidentally mixed a few into the pile.
Brice also did way too much shuffling with the metal spatulas. Excuse me for not knowing the name of these things, but anyone who has ever cooked or been to one of these restaurants should know what these are. He did the whole "shuffle-the-food-around-while-making-metal-clinging-noises" a bit too much, while it seemed we were all sitting there thinking, "ok, when does the real show start?" Where is the flame? The onion volcano? The tossing the scraps in the hat? Oh wait, he did do that with one shrimp tail, but he sure as hell didn't do it gracefully.
After some time, we got our complementary giant flame of oil. It must be a requirement bundled into the expensive check. Great. But no fucking onion volcano. I was watching other nearby chefs, noting their performances and accuracy. One guy to the right of me gave his table TWO giant flames. And I saw the onion volcano, too. What a daredevil. Another guy was clinging his metal spatulas around against the salt and pepper shakers, making a shit-ton of noise, but doing it to a beat, making a neat little jingle out of it. Sorry guys, Brice plays it safe.
Brice left us with hefty plates of quality food. The food was damn good. I got shrimp with my meal. I normally do not eat shrimp, let alone shrimp that is not breaded. They use so many spices and flavorings at this place, though, they could hire an asian to squat over the grill and take a shit, piss while shitting, and then wipe a few times and throw the paper down on the grill, throw some sesame seeds on it, and serve it, and it would still taste amazing. Hell, scratch that, they could hire an illegal immigrant mexican to do the previously-mentioned procedure, after he's shingled a house all day, and ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner consisting of nothing but bean burritos. I am not racist. I believe in illegal immigration and I am 100% serious. Anyways, Brice may not have been as entertaining as the other cooks, but he did cook up some good food. And at the end, there was no climactic finish, he just grunted, said something like, "Ok? Enjoy your meals," and walked away.
In the end, after gratuity which was arguably too high, especially for Brice, the grand total was... $153.00. We evened it out at 160 dollars solid in cash, since we're nice restaurant goers, and Kayla's waitress experience rubs off on us all, making our consciences tell us to tip above the required tip. Roughly $40 per person, which, if we would have had a better cook, would have been totally worth it. Still, the food was fucking good, so I wasn't too worried about splooging the extra money out for the night. It was a great dining experience, and I wanna get back there again, preferably within the next two years. The weird thing is though, afterwards, we drove to the movie theatre to see The Spirit over a half-an-hour early, and all decided to go to Eat N Park for dessert. $160.00 dinner and we still had time and the money for molten lava cake. And smiley face cookies. Amber, the nice raspy-voiced cashier, gave us those for free, but that's another story for another day.
13 years ago
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