dinner is off

The technical lead did not have dinner for the past few nights. He called for an update. I was sitting on the chair and he was standing and was dramatic in his exclamations that client demo work was very important. Also emphasized the fact that he has been missing meals for the last few night. My fault? Incidentally he was going on leave for a day before going onsite for demo and the work responsibility was mostly assigned to a young engineer who lost his temper the other night because he was not allowed to go to dinner with his brother and said not so nice things. Thus was the reason for the update and the warning that the more senior engineer will not be working with young one if he continued to give his piece of mind. An additional update was late approval of his travel plans because neither his manager's manager, nor her manager, nor her manager knew who would take the decision. And he luckily got hotel reservation at 11:45Pm in the night.
How would you handle the hot potato?