Hibachi Restaurant

Todd's mom recently came to visit us from Tennessee. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed the time we spent together. One day for lunch we decided to go to a hibachi restaurant. We all ordered steak and chicken with vegetables and fried rice. However, for Grace I ordered steamed rice because she is highly allergic to eggs. I explained this to the waitress when we ordered.

Eventually the waitress brought Grace a bowl of steamed rice and said something to the hibachi chef about eggs and the little girl. (I assumed she told the chef that Grace could not have eggs). Grace had a blast eating the rice with chopsticks for the first time! There was a father/daughter duo sitting with us at our hibachi table and they really got a kick out of watching her scoop up the rice and lick every morsel off the chopsticks before she dived in for another bite.

After a while the hibachi chef started the show....Grace was thoroughly entertained watching him flip eggs and build flaming onion towers. As he was cooking our fried rice, I noticed that he scrambled an egg separately. Before I could stop him, he scooped up and dumped the entire egg on top of Grace's half-eaten bowl of steamed rice. I took her bowl away and told him that she could not have eggs....which is why we had ordered steamed rice in the first place. I asked for a new bowl of steamed rice for Grace. (I later found out the waitress had asked the chef to put eggs on her rice.)

Up to this point it was bad enough, but what happened next was absolutely insane. The chef took Grace's half-eaten bowl of rice with eggs (complete with germy chopstick saliva) and dumped it on the hibachi grill with our fried rice! He then proceeded to mix it all together while proclaiming with great enthusiasm, "Today your lucky day!!!! More rice for everyone!!!!" Next he divided his rice creation evenly among five bowls (Todd, me, Ann, and father/daughter duo) and proudly placed them on our plates.

Words cannot describe the looks of horror on the faces of the father/daughter as they were served the rice. We were in such a state of shock that nobody said anything to the chef. After I gathered my thoughts, I murmured something to the other guests like, "I'm so sorry...let me say something to the chef." Todd threw in, "She doesn't have any diseases that we know of." They were so kind and insisted that we not say anything. They bravely ate the rice and chuckled to themselves.

Our chef was so proud of himself, smiling and bowing. We all just decided to not make an issue of it.

The fact that he did this with our food in front of us makes me shudder to think what goes on behind the closed kitchen doors.

P.S. The very next morning, Good Morning America did a segment on the dangers of "double dipping" when you are eating with other people. Apparently, millions of germs and bacteria are transfered with every double dip. So, the next time you eat dips or salsa, request a separate bowl for everyone!