Day 985 - Happy Father's Day (Gratuity Not Included)

Father's Day is a great day for me. It reminds me of two things: 1) Two and a half years ago, Emma and Andrew were born. 2) Three years and three months ago, I had sex with my wife for the first time.

This year, we decided to go to the Americana and have lunch. The Americana is this combination of shopping, eating, entertainment, and residences that has a park and water fountain in its center. Think of a high-end Disneyland Main Street and you kinda get the picture. But instead of Mickey Mouse, you get a bunch of Asian tourists.

The day was going great until we decided to eat lunch. Since I'm not one to point fingers, I won't name the restaurant that made my Father's Day a disaster. So I shall just recount the story without any names.

As we walked up to Katsuya at 702 Americana Way Glendale, CA 91210, the hostess told us there was no wait and it would only be a few seconds before our table was ready. Five minutes later, the hostess sat us down at our table with one one high chair. She told us they were looking for the other high chair. Only after our lunch did I suspect that the other high chair was probably being used by another customer to commit suicide.

Crazy Grandma was extremely aggravated that Andrew did not have a high chair. So she started snooping around the restaurant looking for one. She did find another high chair, but it was broken and more importantly, dirty. The hostess came up to us minutes later and told us they could not find the other high chair. Being a group of Japanese customers in a Japanese restaurant, we did what any other Japanese family would do: politely thank her for her help, and after she walked away, talked behind her back.

It took another five minutes before a waiter came by to ask us if we wanted anything to drink, but at least he apologized for his tardiness because he was in the middle of building another high chair out of chopsticks and a spare pagoda. When we finally got to order our food, I was at least happy that my plate of sushi came out right away. It's just too bad that we didn't have any napkins or utensils at our table.

The remainder of the meal was a comedy of errors. When our drinks came, the drink order was wrong. When the drinks came correctly, a minute later another waiter came with our drink order again. When they brought out the napkins and utensils, they didn't bring us enough. We ordered three bowls of rice, and it took almost 10 minutes to come out (I guessed they must have a rice patty in the kitchen.). Once again, about 5 minutes after that another waiter came with three more bowls of rice. And you NEVER mess with a Japanese family's bowl of rice.

At the very least, the waiter was nice and apologetic. He volunteered to take a picture of our family so we would always remember never to come to this restaurant again.


Looking at this picture, I remembered that Father's Day shouldn't be about the restaurant, the bad service, or the food we ate. Instead, Father's Day should be remembered for this simple fact: Dad's are awesome! But as I looked closer at this picture, I realized that perhaps to some people, this day might've been about the food...


I'm telling you...don't mess with a Japanese person's bowl of rice.