Here Come the Sushi Sweats!

Sushi always reminds me of Jesus.

When I was a kid my dad would stick a tray of hot cross buns in the oven and toast them to perfection, whack a heart-palpitating amount of butter on top, and serve them crispy and warm on Easter morning.

I’d stuff my face and no matter how painfully bloated my stomach became I just couldn’t stop eating. I’d roll on the ground clutching my belly and moan, “Never again!”, the way I do now the morning after too much Jagermeister.

Sushi is much the same. I sit at the conveyer belt, grabbing two plates at a time, and not stopping until I hear the tear of my stomach lining.

It just tastes so good. The chopsticks used to slow me down, but I’ve mastered the art and these days I’m like Mr Miyagi – stick wings on the California roll and let it fly around the room, it won’t bother me.

The only problem I have is when it comes to paying the bill; I never know how much to tip the waiter.

Should you tip the waiter at a sushi bar? All he does is bring you a drink, and then the bill, and then he stands there with a sour face when you tip him ten percent of the Appletizer when you’ve spent R400 on sashimi.

To paraphrase Hank Moody, you’d think you’d just finger-banged his cat.

I asked the manager what he thought about tipping the sushi chef because I didn’t want to insult some ancient Asian cultural belief that I maybe knew nothing about, and all he said was that the chefs get a salary, while the waiter gets tips and a sjambokking if there’s a fingerprint on the glassware.

He wouldn’t tell me how much the chefs earned, but he said it’s okay to give them money and I shouldn’t be worried about the absurdly large cleavers they wield.

I did this and explained my actions to the waiter’s downturned maw, but he just grunted something in Hausa and snatched the notes from my hand.

The sushi chef, when I handed him his share of the gratuity, kind of looked at my outstretched hand, then up at the soy sauce dripping from my chin, and slowly took the money with an expression on his face like he thought I was Leon Shuster.

So now I’m even more confused.

I tried to think, “What would Jesus do?”, but then thought Jesus was probably too busy healing lepers to sit around at a sushi bar anxiously watching salmon roses circulate, hoping that no one got to them before he did.

I bet he was more a McDonald’s Drive-Thru man.