Maguro, dame!

I think it is time for me to begin with the restaurant-article! I’m going to cover all restaurants I visit, starting today. I will have to do several articles since there are truck-loads of restaurants just along my street, and I’ve yet to see about 2% of the whole city.

Today I started with going to Denny’s again for lunch. They have superb food for a low price. I chose a combo meal, one that consisted of ramen, tempura and rice. Ramen is a name used for all sorts of spahgetti noodles that is served with soup. There are three types, soba, udon, and glass-noodles (no idea what Japanese name is). I got the udon ones. Tempura is vegetables and shrimps mixed together and then fried. Rice is… rice. But you can get many types of rice dishes really, not just plain rice. I got some terrible mix with a sugar-seasoning that tastes like [censored]. I really had to order some new rice. In any case, these things together both fill your belly, and is really low-fat (hint hint all you girls out there; throw away those diet-cokes and start eating Japanese food if you want results).

The rice with the lethal sugar-seasoning

My very own syrup, literally! I got it to sweeten my orange juice. Only the Japanese know why…

Cleanliness is a virtue, especially in Japan. Denny’s are not the only ones to give these to customers before dinner, every restaurant without exception (perhaps McDonald’s?) give them out before serving the meals

I went to one of the most exclusive restaurants I have yet to visit for dinner. It was a truly traditional restaurant and I was actually afraid that it would be one of those “Japanese only” restaurants, but we got in alright. It was seriously the coolest restaurant I’ve been too. Private rooms for the dinner, a personal attendant (well might have been because we were the only ones there too), only traditional food, no potato-crap, tea to drink, and amazing wall decorations. The coolest, but perhaps not very traditional but who cares, is that the attendant could speak decent English. You’d think that people at computer stores (who cannot help you buy that special cord) that handle international wares like computers, laptops, cables, modems etc. would be able to speak at least proper English. But no, instead it’s a 45-year-old Japanese waitress at a restaurant no one visits. Not only the toilets are weird here, it’s the places at where educated people work too. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the restaurant’s toilet. Wonder if I should go back there just for that reason alone…

The isle in the restaurant, we sat to the left closest to the camera. The picture is a bit flimsy I know, but I didn’t see that in my camera’s quick-view unfortunately

In any case, I ate a really traditional (yes everything was very traditional there) meal called moriawase. It is a so-called sashimi dish, that is, it includes fish. I got 7 pieces of sushi (a rice ball with raw fish on it) and 3 grilled crayfishes. I removed the tuna from the menu (thereof the title) since that is the standard for sushi and loved by the Japanese. Got some salmon instead and shrimps. To that I drank o-cha (green tea) and some brown tea that tasted… weird. Didn’t drink a lot of that, nor did I drink the water I ordered. It was still filled with chlorine as with all water in Japan since it’s so polluted. Like most countries in Europe they drink bottled water here in Japan. It really makes you think twice about being so fortunate about the pure ground water we have in Sweden.

The wall decorations. Ever see this at McDonald’s?

Green tea and sushi, can it get any more Japanese? Perhaps if you include a talking toilet

But I haven’t just eaten all day even if it might sound like it. I’ve actually done my first trip to the laundry, and that was quite the different experience. Since most homes are so small, Japanese families do not have room for a washing machine or a tumble drier. So they go to coin laundries where you can wash your clothes for an overrated price… It costs less if you have got your own detergent. Only problem was, in no way could I have use for any of the enlightening lessons in the higher art of washing clothes from dear mom at home, since the washing machines were quite the different ones. It didn’t help either that everything was written in Japanese. After a bit of help from another visitor who pointed and gestured the machine finally started rolling and after 30 minutes or so and 300 Yen lighter, the clothes were as good as new. The question still lingers though if I used the right temperature for the washing.

My kingdom for a shrue! Or a good dictionary explaining how to operate Japanese washing machines

– – –

Today’s word is hashi – chopsticks