We drive pretty far to try Matador, taking the freeway 30mins to arrive to a quiet town part of Tokyo, a place familiar to my driver. Stopping outside Matador seemed to trouble their young chef, a boy named M.Yokoshima embroidered on his jacket.

Immediately he tried to engage me with threatening eyes, insisting that my driver move the vehicle. It seemed odd given our car was on the opposite side of the road, and was not obstructing any pedestrian, or vehicular traffic. However my driver moved the vehicle out of politeness without any kind of hesitation whatsoever.

Well there are two ways to approach this subject: one is get very upset, and begin with aggression, not advisable in Japan, or confront the owner quietly and explain that this style of behavior is not acceptable in Japan. The owner was very apologetic and insisted we stay and said “he is too over-confident gomenasai” and pointed to our seat at the counter.