Here’s the thing: The story you’re about to read will either irritate or infuriate you. No, it’s not about the election or a think piece on important issues, but the sheer idiocy of the two morons you’re about to meet will probably depress you real hard about where we, as humans, are going. And it’s literally about sushi.
First of all, props to Vice contributor Chris Galletta for owning his idiocy. Second of all, man is this guy an idiot (even years later).
Here’s how he opens his story for Vice, which took place when McKellen and Stewart were in Waiting for Godot and Galletta and his friend decided to have sushi for dinner.
Not too far from the theater, it turned out, one of Jiro’s protégés had opened his own sushi restaurant. It was supposed to be transcendent. And so it was decided: We would fill our bellies with potent, nutrient-dense raw fish and then listen to Magneto and Professor X say some old words.
First mistake: Doing no research and just deciding to go to a restaurant owned by someone who studied under Jiro. Second mistake: Not questioning the use of the word transcendent in relation to sushi. Regular affordable sushi is “good” and you can get it any old time. Transcendent sushi? That’s going to cost you, man. Why didn’t you check Yelp, though?
We were told Jiro’s protégé Toma was actually there that night, and we should sit at the counter. Matt was giddy. The wizard himself would be making our sushi before our very eyes. Suddenly, I was bummed that we only had an hour to eat. I like sushi a lot and was prepared to do some damage.
And:
Toma had an assistant who looked exactly like him but who was proportionally smaller, like the first insert of a Russian doll, and together they prepared us what was easily the best sushi I’ve ever eaten or ever will. After every dish, Toma penciled a figure into small ledger. Then he would turn with a smile and suggest another spectacular morsel.
The food, of course, was delicious as **** and Galletta and his friend were certain they’d be paying out the nose for it. But by their estimation, all the fresh fish that Toma himself was preparing for them should have cost like, you know about $150, right? $200 max? How much does sushi cost anyway when prepared by a master? $300 at most?
Nope, it’s $1,100 dollars. $1,100. Is that a ridiculous amount of money to pay for sushi? Sure, for most of us. Which is why we’re at our local galleria’s sushi boat eating whatever they’ve got going on at the $3 happy hour (sometimes made by robots!) instead of dropping bank at some fancy restaurant hidden away in an old office building (which is a very trendy thing for restaurants to do).
Pro tip: If you are going to a place that’s in a terrible location but has a good rep, it’s either going to be very packed or very expensive. And if it’s not one, it’s the other.
But, of course, when you’re in shock, you try to explain away the terrible thing that put you into a state of disbelief in the first place, so Galletta and his friend first demanded that their check be given to them in “American dollars” (because they thought it was written in yen for authenticity). And then, if you’re Galletta and his friend, you swipe a credit card and then plot ways in which you could do a chargeback, even though you ate the Uni, which is the most expensive thing on the menu.
I wasn’t even full. I felt how one should feel after a quality meal—energized, alert, on balance. But I’m Italian, so I can’t acknowledge that I ate well unless I’m clutching my intestines and bargaining with God. On the walk to the theater, Matt kept mumbling “… gonna fight it, that’s all… fight the purchase…” I walked to an ATM right after the theater and took that very large sum out of my savings account and paid him cash.
Of course, you can’t fight a purchase just because you didn’t know the price, so Galletta and his friend had to pay for the sushi. And since the guy’s come clean about it — and is currently being ridiculed for it in the comments — it’s less of a story of outrage and more a cautionary tale. That caution? Do your fatherflipping research before eating the best part of a fresh sea urchin and always ask if the refills are free. (That last one is most important to normal folks like us!)
(H/T: Foodbeast, Nextshark)
