I ended up in a sushi bar in midtown after work after a sudden and surprise craving for some Japanese food. That often happens to me in Vancouver but not Toronto, so I answered the sushi call as soon as my errand was finished at Davisville. I didn’t search for long before I found a suitable place and scanned the menu.
If I’m eating alone, nothing beats sitting at a sushi bar, sipping a cup of jasmine tea and reading the local paper while the chefs make my meal a couple of feet away. For me, it’s the perfect ambience. My mind takes a little vacation.
Shortly after I sat down, a family joined me at the bar: a couple with two daughters. I was impressed that the father knew the names for the varieties of fish and took the time to teach the names in both English and Japanese. The couple were French Canadian and I’m guessing they adopted their daughters from Vietnam or Cambodia; the girls were early grade-school age. The kids asked a barrage of questions, and the parents were very easygoing about answering them all. Every single one.
The way the family talked to the chef, they seemed to be regulars, too. The parents didn’t force the girls to eat anything they didn’t want to, and said whatever they liked, they’d ask the chef for more.
I’m thinking to myself, ‘Between the multiple languages and exposure to different cultures and fun-loving parents and SUSHI, what a charmed life these girls will lead!’
Then one daughter remarked on the state of the squid.
“I don’t think I can eat that. It’s too… octopussy…”
Then she went on to ask — and I didn’t quite catch this part verbatim — something like what do these creatures think about us eating them?
I tucked into my bento box, trying to appear more interested in my food than their conversation. All the while thinking, ‘This I have to hear!’
I imagined the mother looking at the father, perhaps tossing a coin telepathically to decide who would answer THIS question. ‘Whose turn is it to be in the hotseat, dear?’
The father took a shot: “If you were swimming in the ocean, do you think the octopus who wanted to eat you would think twice about eating you?”
I didn’t dare look over. I had a full mouth of food, and I was trying not to laugh.
I think the girls were stymied, because the father continued: “You know that lobster in the pot? If the lobster put YOU in the pot, do you think it would wonder what was going through your mind? No, I think it would just think about how good you would taste.”
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