It usually starts as a habit. The phone goes on the table, face down but close enough to reach without thinking. I check it while waiting for water, during a pause in conversation, or just because my hand moves before my mind does. It is not intentional. It is a muscle memory.
Then the chef steps behind the counter.
There is no announcement. No signal that things are about to begin. The room just feels different all of a sudden. He picks up his knife and starts working, and without meaning to, I start watching. Not out of politeness, not because I feel like I should, but because there is nothing else pulling at my attention. His movements are calm and precise. When he slices the filefish, it is quiet and clean, and somehow that feels more interesting than anything waiting on my screen.
At some point during the meal, I realise I have not touched my phone in a long time. I felt weird. This is new to me. I did not make a decision to put it away. I did not tell myself to be present. I just forgot about it.
That is something the counter does to me. Outside, everything competes for my attention. Notifications light up. Screens flash. There is always something asking to be checked. Here, the urgency is different. When a piece of nigiri is placed in front of me, it feels like it is inviting me to eat it. For once, the thing in front of me matters more than whatever is happening elsewhere.
I start noticing small things. The texture of the pottery when I lift a dish. The grain of the wooden counter under my hands. The way the light catches the surface of a piece of sardine just before I eat it. These are details I usually miss in restaurants, distracted by conversation or by the glow of a phone. Here, with nothing else competing, they come into focus on their own.
There is something comforting about not having to decide anything. I am not choosing what to order or when the next dish should come. I am not managing the experience. The chef is doing all of that. All I have to do is sit, eat, and pay attention. It feels lighter than I expected.
By the time the tamago arrives, I feel slightly removed from everything outside the room. I know the emails are still there. The messages, the news, the constant noise of it all has not gone anywhere. But for a while, it has stopped mattering. I drink my tea and feel the warmth in my hands. Only then do I notice my phone again, still face down where I left it. It has not moved. Neither have I. And for two hours, that felt completely enough.