mindless ramblings

Tonight’s dinner was interesting. Wanna know why? It’s coming after the food!

The dinner itself was pretty satisfying. I had a combo box of beef teriyaki, salmon and tuna sashimi, assorted tempura and green salad. Esther had the unagi don and both of our dishes came with a bowl of miso soup. The servings were generous, plenty of beef, rice and tempura (6 pieces including 2 shrimps!). The 3 pieces of salmon and 2 tuna were nice and thick too. The unagi don was equally generous, with a nice square box of rice covered with four to five pieces of nicely grilled unagi, covered in perhaps not enough gooey sweet sauce.

Now to why it was interesting. The place was utterly empty on a Friday night at 8pm! Unsanitary conditions? Nope according to the Food Inspection website (they’re not even listed!). Poor service? Our service was fine, if nothing to rave about. Too expensive? Definitely not, my meal cost a very reasonable $10.25, and the unagi don was only $8.75. That’s pretty darn affordable considering the amount of food we consumed!

So why is the place empty? I have no idea. So far I have determined that:

• It’s clean and brightly lit
• It’s affordable
• The service is up to par
• It’s offerings are comparable to other Japanese restaurants in Richmond
• Parking is plentiful

It ticks all the boxes on my “don’t mind eating here” list. The only reason I can think of is that the market is too saturated and the other restaurants already cater to 100% of the folk who are out on the town for some Japanese. But this won’t explain why the place is absolutely empty! I feel so sad for the owner, they are (to me) seemingly doing everything right, but the business just isn’t coming in. Maybe it’s just one of those mysteries that continually remind me that I’m not exactly an astute businessman.