Absolutely. The best chefs put on a show while they cook the meal at your table and keep up a steady patter of jokes and one liners. I know the one we ate at regularly some chefs would make a volcano out of a sliced onion - filling it with oil and lighting it. My kids loved that. Every time we went they would yell "volcano, volcano" and the chef was always happy to oblige them. Some people just need to loosen up.
Absolutely. The best chefs put on a show while they cook the meal at your table and keep up a steady patter of jokes and one liners.
I was on vacation/golfing trip to Myrtle Beach with my husband and one night we went to a Hibachi restaurant.
The chef walked up to our table and boy, he was a big and very serious looking Japanese dude. And by big, I don’t mean fat or like a Sumo wrestler, but big as in tall and very muscular. He stood there for a moment, almost scowling at us. Then all of a sudden he broke out in a big smile and with the deepest southern drawl you’ve ever heard, said - “Hi y’all. How y’all doin’ tonight? Bet y’all weren’t expecting me to sound like this did ya”. ; )
He was great BTW. He did all the usual entertaining things you expect at a Hibachi restaurant (the onion volcano, tossing shrimp to us) and some amazing knife work and told some very funny stories and jokes.
I recall him making fun of himself saying he might be the only “Japanese redneck - a coon huntin’ and catfish fishin’ NASCAR fan in all of South Carolina, or perhaps anywhere”. He made a joke about once having dreamed of being a NASCAR driver himself but of course – “as everyone knows, us Asians can’t drive.” He asked where my husband and I were from and when we said Maryland he said, “well that’s “almost” sort of Southern so you are OK… I guess”. He also said that when his parent’s talked about “The War” they weren’t talking about WWII but THE WAR – you know, what we Southerners know as the War of Northern Aggression”. He joked that he wanted to join a Civil War re-enactment group but they didn’t have any openings for rebel Samurai warriors.
He also told us all four of his grandparents were born in Japan but both he and his parents were born in South Carolina and he grew up in Myrtle Beach. He had recently served in the US Army but was back home and working on finishing his MBA and was working this job to help pay for his schooling. He was a cool and very funny guy.