Thursday, July 22, 2004

Lost in Translation (1 of ?) We had been walking around and it was hot and the children were quite miserable, so we decided to stop for food.  We saw a little restaurant, and although we could not read any of the signs, and there were no pictures outside (many restaurants have at least pictures outside of what they serve, some have elaborate displays with plastic food displayed on plates, which look remarkably appetizing), we stepped in anyway to do a further inspection.  Of course that was utterly useless, no English menu was available, and there were no pcitures inside.  But stepping inside to the restaurant staff means that you are eating here, I think, and before we had sat down and before we had actually decided (and frankly, I was off a mind that we should leave as I had no idea what they were going to serve), a very kind old lady had come out of the back to welcome us and brought the first dish 5 little salads (on dishes no bigger than 4 square inches, with some shredded cabbage some sesame seeds and some herbs).  So we stayed.  The restaurant was layed out like many others are, where you sit at a bar (however a low bar) and look at the kitchen, at a series of steaming pots right and kitchen surfaces and equipment.  An old man, whom I assume was the husband of the lady was the cook.  The lady was very nice, but we had no idea what we ordered, just nodded whenever she spoke and smiled whenever she seemed to ask a question and we of course had no idea what to answer.  This was a tempura restaurant, and the cook would make 5 shrimp and then serve us each one.  Then a little piece fish, then a piece of eggplant (or what was that), then a whole group of scallops).  It was delicious, and the children were happy to pour the tempura sauce over their rice and eat that.  (The need to become adept at eating with chopsticks is also evident, as this restaurant did not have any other utensils). 12:04:00 PM     It is hot's.  Hot like it was in 'do the right thing' absolutely relentless.  The temperature is close to 100 and the humidity is high.  Even for Tokyo, where the weather is notoriously nasty in the summer it's hot: we had the hottest day ever recorded the day before yesterday and today that record is expected to be broken again.  It makes life rather difficult as we want to get out of the apartment, but one simply does not last long outside. We had our first experience in the grocery store.  The store is close by, just down the street and has a good asortment of products.  The challenge is to find things that are affordable, and the children will eat.  As there are a fair number of foreigners in the area, the store has an asortment of imported products, but these are, not surprisingly very expensive (150 grams of Parmesan cheese for $10, for instance).  It makes clear that we must do our best to get a Japanese cookbook learn to cook with local ingredients.  One interesting item that we did buy was eggs.  I thought they were an easy enough item to buy, they looked remarkably similar and I felt pretty confident about my purchase despite not being able to read the label.  However, when we ate the first one, it turned out that they had been softboiled.  What would one use those for.  I presume they may be consumed directly, cold.  Bread comes into little packages of 5 slices, on the milk packages it says to what temperature the milk has been heated and one should buy the 66C not the 130C kind.   11:42:08 AM

© Copyright 2004 Erik Vinkhuyzen. Last update: 8/2/2004; 11:54:05 PM.