Dinner with my brother - an ongoing series

I have decided to start a series of posts that describe in excruciating detail what it's like to go to dinner with my brother. You might learn about fine dining in LA or you might hear stories about me pulling the fire alarm in an Italian restaurant to get out of the bill. Either way, I am sure there will be some mention of my brother eating a rotisserie chicken with his hands in a sushi joint (I think he brought it with him). With that said, there is no better place to start our adventure than to retell the story of having dinner last night at one of Los Angeles's finest sushi restaurants. Actually this is the story of not having dinner at one of LA's finest sushi establishments.

As some of you might know, I will only eat in one of two sushi places in the greater Los Angeles area. One is Nishimura, and the other is Jinpachi. Both are in my ignorant white person's opinion amazing. In fact the owner of Jinpachi is rumored to have worked at Nishimura for a time. I think it ended after he was caught taking polaroids of the fish so he would know exactly how to recreate the dishes for his own establishment. Lately, I 've been eating at Jinpachi since the last time I ate at Nishimura was my birthday dinner and as you may know I made a vow not to return. Okay, enough back story, we walk into Jinpachi at 6pm and I make a bee line to the bathroom to pee. I either have type two diabetes or the world's smallest bladder (a story for another time). While I am in the bathroom my brother sits at the sushi bar. Flash back to me in the bathroom, I take a piss, flush the toilet and start to wash my hands. As I am scrubbing my skin like any sane person with OCD does, I notice the urinal is running with extreme force and the water level is rising. I stare at it for a second and think, who cares, urinals don't overflow. Suddenly as I am drying my hands I notice the yellowy water is getting dangerously close to the urinal brim. Shit, time to escape. I grab fifty paper towels and open the door praying there is no skin to handle contact. As the door opens the water starts to pour out of the urinal onto the floor. I run to the first Japanese person I see and say the urinal is overflowing. After realizing he is just a customer, I tell the first Mexican I see. At this point water is rushing out of the bathroom into the restaurant.

I run back to the sushi bar out of breath and tell my brother exactly what happened. I describe running from the piss water as if I were Indiana Jones trying to outrun that boulder in Raiders. I can tell he isn't paying attention. He is just waiting for his turn to talk. As soon as I get out my last word, he informs me that the owner of Jinpachi is on vacation in Japan and that he doesn't want to be served by an underling. That is when the following occurred:

Lewis -looking directly at the sushi chef but talking loudly to me

CALL MY CELL PHONE RIGHT NOW!

Barry

Okay

I dial my phone and place it in my lap. A minute later my brother's phone rings. Thanks AT&T. He looks at the sushi chef.

Lewis

I need to take this.

Sushi Chef

Yoshi

My brother gets up from the table and walks outside. He paces back and forth talking. He walks back in.

Lewis - looking at the sushi chef

That was my wife. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I have to leave right now to pick up my daughter.

Sushi Chef

Yoshi

I burst into laughter as I get up from the bar and run out of the place. I notice out of the corner of my eye, that half of the employees are using towels to try stop the toilet water from advancing throughout the whole restaurant.

Long story short, due to current circumstances, my birthday vow has been revoked. Nishimura is back in the rotation.

Stay tuned for more dining adventures with my brother in the coming weeks.