I was craving Japanese food, so, at 6:53 p.m., I called Oyama and splurged on the Hibachi Chicken for take-out ($17.50). It was definitely sweater-and-shorts weather this evening — my favorite kind (if you remember) — so after I picked up my dinner and a bottle of water, I headed over to the Shark River where I had my choice of empty picnic tables. I settled down at the one facing west and spread out my three-course Japanese feast. Then I kicked off my flip-flops, whipped out my chopsticks, and dug in.

There are a few excellent aspects of ordering your Hibachi Chicken to go. First of all, you can eat your salad and your miso soup at the same time. Second, you don’t have to deal with the bad-joke-cracking, eggshell-tossing Japanese man prancing about behind the grill attempting to be entertaining, and third, if you’re alone, no one can make fun of you for tossing all your mushrooms into your empty salad container. Really, the only setback is that you get white rice rather than fried.

What a great dinner. It was definitely worth the 20 bucks. Japanese food all alone by sunset in sweater-and-shorts weather — I was in heaven.