If Heaven had a restaurant, it would be my father’s old Japanese sushi restaurant.

In fact, if the afterworld (and I am among those who believe in such things) was the kind of place that didn’t have any restaurants or kitchens, I’m not sure I’d even want to go. It may defeat the purpose of losing a digestive tract, but I would insist on eating and ordering nevertheless.

My father’s restaurant is one of those rare places in the world where everything feels just right.

The stars seem to align in the right spot, mistakes at work are forgiven, questionable outfits are somehow softened out by the forgiving wooden walls at the sushi counter.

In heaven, I would demand that every detail be replicated just as it has been in our restaurant for years past. The sushi bar would be cluttered with the same old knick-knacks that one food critic described as being “bad decor”: the sumo wrestler’s handprint, the Ichiro bobblehead, the plastic Godzilla figurine and ceramic mugs made by waitresses who also assembled a mosaic of business cards on the wall. Behind me would be an old framed hockey photo (World Junior Championship 2005!), and worn-out Japanese cushions, sewn by my mother late into the night.

The sushi platter would be the Platonic ideal of what sushi was meant to be, if Plato ever had a chance to taste Japanese cuisine. A large celadon plate would serve as a backdrop for an artful assortment of nigiri, maki and sashimi. The black and red-laquered “sushi boat” would carry  two pieces of every kind of sushi, kind of like a culinary Noah’s ark.

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