"Where did March go?" Part 3: Jeannie's Birthday at Wasabi

Bringing my March misadventures to a close (I have to hurry and be up to date because roller derby returns tomorrow! I'm watching "Whip It!" right now to get in the mood, because roller derby makes my heart sing.), I managed in the middle of the busiest time of the semester for my end of the department to put together a ten person birthday dinner for Jeannie at Wasabi, a Japanese steakhouse that she requested.

I'll go on record right now as saying I have no idea how authentic the "Japanese steakhouse" experience is here in America, or whether it bears the slightest resemblance to the way the Japanese prepare and serve food at home. I mean, it looks kind of Japanese:



but it's the same way that EPCOT looked kind of Japanese:



Either way, it's a fun show. There's a lot of fire, and a lot of food flying around.

It started with the vegetables:



First he was chopping the vegetables, then there were vegetables in the air, and then William, Elizabeth and Ben's toddler at the end of the table there, was throwing vegetables in the air, too. Somehow in the middle of all of this a peice of onion ended up in my coke, but I politely continued drinking it until the refill came. Besides, I was too enthralled watching the chef build the onion volcano to really care about the coke.

First he cut the onion in half, and then, using just the knife, he began to stack the rings on the grill:



I'm not sure I'd be able to do that even if I could use my hands, but he just kept stacking:



and then he squirted something in the middle and all of a sudden OH MY GOD, THERE WAS FIRE!



SO MUCH FIRE! IT WAS AWESOME!

After the fire there was rice:



And then he started making rice balls and throwing them at people. Elizabeth caught hers:



but mine bounced out of my mouth and landed in Kristin's salad. It was like some sort of horrible food related gym class moment.

After the rice throwing, most of the show was over, and he got down to grilling the proteins:



That little corner of the grill there:



is my dinner:



It was pretty good, but by the time we got to the chicken I'd already had soup, vegetables, and rice, so I barely ate any until the next day. Everyone seemed to have a really good time, though:



Everything was fine right up until we were all splitting up to head for our cars and the inevitable happened:



Baby rage, made all the more entertaining by Kristin and I standing on the sidelines with our cameras out yelling, "Turn him this way!"

You know what's even funnier than baby rage, though? When one baby is in full tantrum mode, and the other baby wanders over to point at him and laugh:



William is totally my favorite baby that I see regularly.

Sorry, Jeannie.