Lunch is Different in Japan

On Tuesday one of my clients came into town for some training. They had had some turnover internally and hired some new staff as well so we were training 3 new team members. They were younger and this was the first time we had met them. There were two guys and one girl.

As a break between trainings we took them to lunch. It was me (training them on the email marketing tool) my co-worker Lisa (training them on their website admin tool), Ben (their new contact from our team because Lisa is leaving) and Jeff (one of our officers AKA he was paying the bill).

We went to a Japanese steakhouse. I remember when we were deciding where to make a reservation last week Jeff wanted to go somewhere fun "but not Chuck E. Cheese."

The girl from our client had never been to a Japanese steakhouse. This was her first time.

It started out with the usual funny jokes. He was spinning the egg and dropped one. "Clean up on aisle four" he said in his i'm-not-so-sure-it-was-japanese accent.

Then he was making the fried rice, and there was a lot because all 7 of us ordered fried rice. "What shape should I make?" he asked Lisa. She suggested a normal shape, a heart.

"What about a penis?" he said. The girl from our client, sitting next to me said "did he just say what I think he said?" "I didn't say that" he quickly replied.

He then proceeded to put the rice in the shape of a torso. Then he filled two bowls with rice and turned them upside down to empty them as boobs. We giggled awkwardly. Then he cut off the tips of a lemon and put them on top of the boobies for nipples. THEN he took sesame seeds and poured them above what would be the cha-cha area.

Uh. Awkward. HELLO - I just met these people.

But he wasn't done!

Then he reshaped the huge pile of rice into a penis. He said it needed a "helmet" and made it so. He even had two balls and one was bigger than the other "It's natural, right ladies?"

OMG. Is this really happening? "Toby!" I said, which is our running joke around the office when something inappropriate happens at work because we don't have an HR person. The chef totally didn't understand. "Who's Toby?" he asked.

One of the guys said "Don't point that at me" so he tried to turn the penis but then it was just curved. Finally it was over and the rest of the food was prepared without any more sexual references.

All I could think for the rest of the day was

"I can't believe my rice was in the shape of a penis before I ate it."

And I can only imagine what that girl thought since it was her first time.