Sukiyaki

There’s a traditional dish in Japan called sukiyaki, which is a kind of one-pot stew with meat and vegetables.  Jill had first cooked us Sukiyaki, telling us that (like a lot of other things in japan) this is one of those dishes that varies by the region you have it in. For instance, near the coast they probably add seafood.  In Kyoto, where there are a lot of zen Buddhists, we had something similar with tofu.  The other day we passed a Yokohama-style Sukiyaki restaurant.  So we thought we’d check it out.

Yokohama style has less (different) things in it than the style that Jill made for us. This one had beef, mushrooms, tofu, leeks and a green leafy vegetable.

Generally sukiyaki is served on cold days. It’s one of those dishes that you can make even on a really tight budget because you can put whatever you can afford in it. Our restaurant must have missed that memo because it ended up being tremendously expensive. We were kind of afraid of that when we were ordering – I suppose it’s one of those things you just have to be okay with when the waitress can’t understand your price-clarifying questions!

It’s common to dip your cooked sukiyaki into raw, scrambled egg before eating it. Elizabeth and Nathan (below) weren’t into that part at all! Jon and I will either die early of food poisoning or live to 102 because our stomachs are made of steel.

I was reading in wikipedia about sukiyaki and found out that we may have just gone to the oldest Sukiyaki restaurant in all of Japan! The first sukiyaki restaurant, Isekuma, opened in Yokohama in 1862. Woah!

Sea World

Oh! I never told you about sea world.  I suck. Here are some (non-sequential) highlights:

Jon feeding dolphins! Pretty cool experience, though I may be less than a stellar girlfriend for not getting jon’s head in this photo. Hopefully he forgives me.

This was cool – maybe my favourite part. Petting zoo… in the WATER.

So then this nice lady took our picture with the Shamu. He was our favourite Shamu, who i like to call… Floppy Fin. (Please see below)

Now Presenting…. Floppy Fin!!! Okay, it was obvious that the Shamu show was their big ticket item and they put more money into that area than anywhere else in the park. Still, it was great.

We also saw Penguins, Flamingos, and the cow-of-the-sea. And then I sat in a polar bear cave (or the polar-bear-cave-play-area). Really cool. All the photos are here.

Afterwards, we went to this place called The Fishery. It was awesome. Really good, high quality fish, in a really comfortable space. It kind of reminded me of upscale-at-the-docs kind of style. The service was good, and though they were out of Jon’s first choice for dinner, the food was great too. Oh. Dessert.

I have an unhealthy fascination with balsamic. I could drink the stuff. Balsamic milk shake? I’m in. So this place has this “signature dessert” that I kept hearing about in reviews that was a vanilla bean gelato covered with strawberries and balsamic. I was stoked, but since jon doesn’t like vinegar in his desserts, I didn’t really expect to get it. With a careful nudge from our waiter, we tried it. It was incredible. Maybe the highlight of the meal.

Lunch at Sushi Deli 2

Jessi, you totally missed out. You know, being in a different state, and sitting hungrily in your office and whatnot. You should live vicariously through me. Here we go:

This was lunch! We ordered two combo plates, which in most restaurants have things like… tekka maki, or cali rolls. This was awesome! So much food I couldn’t finish it, for 20$.

A couple of nights ago, I harassed our server at Zanzibar and she gave us a list of restaurants to check out. This was one of them and it was so great!

Wandering About

There’s a wine store, downstairs from our apartment. Everyone in this particular town seems to have a web site.  I really appreciate that.

We appear to live in the middle of restaurant-row.  It’s kind of nice.  There are like… six solid blocks of restaurants and quite a few of them look like they’ll be open for lunch, which is great because then jon and I can go together.