Thursday, August 20, 2009

Wheel of Gastric Delights

Getting hungry, as one usually gets, I walked around the area near my apartment looking for a place to get some lunch. Enticed by some amazing smells, I wandered into a small restaurant which contained about six tables, one chef, and one waitress/hostess, who sat me and gestured to the menu. And that's where the fun began. As I looked at the menu, I realized that 1) there were no pictures, 2) it was all in kanji, and 3) I don't speak Japanese. So taking a leap of faith, I pointed at the third row of characters, smiled, nodded, and hoped that what I was pointing at was actually food, and not just the title of the restaurant. This is what I got:


Turns out, it was actually quite delicious. Those rolls were strips of sauteed pork wrapped around kim chi, and I really have to learn how to cook this. However, I had one more surprise in store for the meal. See that bowl of pudding-looking white stuff? Well, it looked like pudding to me, so I took a good gob of it with my chopsticks, and put it in my mouth. Definitely spicy mayonaise, not pudding. The best part was that the waitress and the chef were both staring at me while I did this, their expressions turning from utter horror to unconcealed mirth as I realized my mistake. The waitress came over to explain to me that this was to be used as a dipping sauce for the pork rolls, laughing the entire time. Lesson learned. All in all, I'm sure I'll be visiting this place again, considering that entire tray cost me 630 yen. What a find!

2 comments:

  1. You cooking? I'll believe it when I see it. Tonight for dinner, guess what we had? LEFTOVERS AND TAHOE BRUNCH! YUCK.

    Love, Dad

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  2. So how does all this compare to our little Korea House in Nashville?

    ReplyDelete