The Japanese Restaurant

I decided to go out to dinner at a little Japanese restaurant on my street. When I walked in, I was handed one large plate and one small plate on a tray. I was to chose anything from a few sliding-door refrigerators filled with small expensive (by Vietnamese standards) food items. I chose a piece of sushi, a stick of tempura shrimp, a stick of peppered shrimp balls, and a rice blob. I took it to the front, where the cashier took my money and my rice blob and sent me up the stairs. I was too stunned to argue. When I got to the top, a waiter speaking in Vietnamese asked me questions, took my tray of food, put my shoes in a locker, gave me flip flops and a locker key, gave me back my tray, and pointed me up another flight of stairs. I rose up the second flight, another man spoke to me in Vietnamese, I shook my head in confusion, and he pointed me up some more stairs. I had no idea this place was so high. I went up a final flight of stairs, where another waiter speaking in Vietnamese finally ushered me into a room.

Following everyone else's lead, I left the shoes I had been given in a big pile of identical flip flops at the door, grabbed a mat to sit on, and sat cross legged at a table. A waiter came in, took my food off the tray and put it on the table, gave me three sauces (chili sauce, mayonnaise, and soy sauce), pointed at my stick of tempura shrimp and then at a metal vat of oil in front of me, and walked away with my tray. I put my tempura shrimp stick in the oil vat. A minute later, a waitress came running up, put my tempura stick drenched in oil back on my plate, turned on the oil vat with a dial under the table, said “5 minutes,” and then left. I waited five minutes for the oil to heat as I ate my peppered shrimp balls and sushi. Then I placed my already ruined tempura shrimp stick in the vat to cook it. I still had no idea what had happened to my rice blob. I was having a difficult time figuring out what I was supposed to use the mayonnaise and chili sauce for. I had run out of things to do with myself when my rice blob suddenly arrived, freshly cooked. It was wrapped in something leathery with something meaty inside. It was not easy to eat with my disposable chopsticks, so I ate it with my hands.
 

  Then I awkwardly stood up, left my plates at my table, grabbed two flip flops out of the big pile in front of the room, went down a couple flights of stairs, put my key in my locker (I was very relieved I remembered which one it was), put my regular shoes back on, left my key in the locker with the locker open, went down another flight of stairs, and practically ran out of the building. The whole time I was leaving, I was wondering exactly how many things I had just done wrong. I was still hungry after spending twice as much as normal on dinner. I went to the nearest food cart and got some fish with rice. I never thought I'd be so relieved to have to order something from a Vietnamese food cart in Saigon.