More delicious food, and some booze too!

There’s just so much fantastic food here, I felt that it warranted another blog post. I also realised that I haven’t yet mentioned much about the delightful booze we’ve been consuming – an uncharacteristic oversight on my part!

Weekday lunches for me are often spent with my classmates and we’re busy sampling all the local restaurants round Iidabashi, where our school is. We’ve tried a couple of the ramen joints, a tonkatsu place, a burger bar, and on Friday we went to a great place where I got a whole grilled fish, head, tail, bones, insides and all, which I had to eat with chopsticks. It was messy and delicious!

In my last post about food I said that we’d been eating some amazing sushi but hadn’t had the camera with us…that’s now been rectified and here are a couple of photos of the wonderful selections we’ve had.

Lunch set in a restaurant underneath Tokyo Station

Dinner in one of our local sushi restaurants. We sat at the bar so the chef
was making each piece about two feet away from us.

Izakaya

An izakaya is a kind of Japanese pub that serves small dishes of food with which to accompany your booze. Think tapas-sized portions of anything and everything that you just keep ordering until you’re full. It’s pretty heavenly really. Here are some beauties from the last couple of weekends.

My friend Yuko took me out for dinner a couple of weeks ago and we
went to a local izakaya. This was the starter we got on the house. The
skewer has fish cakes on it, and the orange square thing is three
different types of roe set in jelly. Looks gorgeous, tastes great.

Beautifully presented sashimi (I think it was trout here) served under a pile of
ginger, spring onions, radishes, garlic, seaweed and chrysanthemum petals.

Last weekend's izakaya spread including fried chicken, chips, edamame beans
and tako-wasabi (see below).

Close up of tako-wasabi (octopus with horseradish).
Looks like a bowl of snot, tastes fantastic!

Round 2 - once we'd finished the spread above we ordered some more.
This time it was garlic octopus (on the right) and deep fried cheese
balls (on the left). Tasty tasty tasty.

After all the octopus and fried stuff we each had a large glass of sake.
It's poured so it fills the glass completely and spills over into the box.
When you've finished what's in your glass you pour what's in the box
into the glass and drink that. That way you know you've not been
cheated with a small measure. Genius.

At 200 yen for a drink you
can't go wrong really!
Happy times at the Regent Manor

This is how we knew that the Asahi
in Hiroz was cold...

Many izakayas offer a course menu at dinner. This is a pre-set selection of anything from four or five courses to tens of plates depending on what your budget is. On Saturday night we decided to have a bit of a blowout and find a tasty-sounding course menu in one of our local Akasaka izakayas. We started off by trying out a few bars nearby. These ranged from the hugely cheesy (it was Halloween weekend after all) but wonderfully-cold-Asahi-serving Hiroz, to the very quiet but amazingly-cheap-Saturday-Happy-‘Hour’ (3pm-8pm) Regent Manor, to the über-classy, cover-charge-tastic Mixology.

Having warmed up suitably, we wandered downstairs to a restaurant that looked rather pretty on its street-level advertising. It’s called Kawano-ne, which means ‘sound of the river’, and that’s because it has a river running through the middle of it. Yup, an underground restaurant with a river in the middle of it. It was pretty special really – here are some of their beautiful publicity shots that give you an idea of what it looks like.

The waterfall that greets you as you walk into the restaurant.

Amazing decor inside. We need to go back in a different season to see
whether they change the foliage. I'm hoping for cherry blossoms in spring!

The tables are set along the river with lots of space around them.

And here are some photos of the food. We went for the eight course menu, a couple of beers and some shochu (Japanese spirit a bit like vodka). The menu was as follows: tofu with seaweed, soy sauce and two types of salt; radish, roe and sweet potato; sashimi; radish and fish soup; vegetable tempura; chicken with mushrooms; rice with salmon and potatoes; and milk dessert with kiwi sauce. All in all it came to around £40 each which, considering the quality of the food, the amazing setting and the brilliant service, seems rather bargainous! Enjoy vicariously…

Tofu with soy. In the box on the left are two types of salt, and dried seaweed.

From left to right; sweet potato; radish and something orange that we
couldn't identify but enjoyed; block of roe.

Sashimi with grated radish, shredded spring onions and soy sauce.
This was my favourite course.

Radish soup with a large prawn and some fishcakes. There was another taste
that I couldn't work out. I've never had anything quite like this and
I enjoyed it a lot.

Rice with salmon and potatoes, with miso soup on the side.
This was Simon's favourite part of the meal.

Milk pudding with kiwi sauce. Very refreshing at the end
of the meal. We also had a glass of shochu each. Delicious!

またね!

Watashi wa Abi desu. Nihongo gakkou no gakusei desu.

I'm Abi. I'm a student at a Japanese language school.

So, I hear you all ask, just how have I been spending my WAG days since I’ve been here? I haven’t been getting my hair and nails done all day every day for the last seven weeks have I? You’re right, I have not (although believe me, there are more than enough hair, nail, massage, makeup and general beauty salons in Tokyo to keep anyone busy for months, should he or she so desire). A few weeks ago I enrolled at a Japanese language school and thereto have I been going every weekday from 9.30am ‘til 1.30pm. I’ve signed up for a term’s lessons so until 21 December, public holidays aside, if you want to find me on a weekday morning, I am on the 5^th floor of the Academy of Language Arts, just up the road from Iidabashi Station.

I study at Iidabashi.

I’m in a class of 12 and we’re a mixed bunch indeed. We hail from the following countries: England, 1 person; Republic of Ireland, 1 person; Norway, 1 person; Pakistan, 1 person; America, 2 people; China, 3 people; the Philippines, 3 people. Question: How on earth do you go about teaching a group of people that does not share the same native language, or even the same writing system, another, entirely different, highly grammatically elaborate, syllabic plus ideographic writing system-based language? Answer: Start speaking it at them. And yes, for the first couple of hours we were definitely being spoken at; there was very little sense of being able to reply as we all floundered, panic-stricken, in a sea of unfamiliar sounds and symbols.

A couple of weeks in and it’s all becoming a little more familiar. We grapple with grammar and vie with vocabulary on a daily basis but our teachers are patient and remain optimistic about our achievements. We are taught by Sakuma-sensei, Fujii-sensei, Hatakeyama-sensei and Nikimashi-sensei. They’ve all got a good sense of humour, which strikes me as a fundamental requirement for teaching such a motley crew.  Lessons mainly take place in Japanese but the odd English word is thrown in for clarity. I feel incredibly privileged that when this explanation happens it does so in my native language, and have utmost respect for those of my classmates for whom English is not the first language. I can’t imagine being taught Japanese from a basis of French, for example.

Japanese language study is very difficult but interesting and fun.
I like it!

A huge advantage of taking group lessons is that we all pick up things at different speeds; what is easy for one person will be hard for another, and vice versa the next day. We constantly help each other out with explanations and clarifications. The level of trust in the room has rocketed and we’re at a stage now where nobody feels intimidated, or afraid to make a mistake, or ashamed to say they don’t understand. It’s an incredibly supportive learning environment and I am learning valuable lessons that I will be able to use when I get back to the UK and (hopefully) continue working in arts education.

The day before yesterday I went with my friends, by metro,
to a festival for foreign students. It was fun.

Rainbow colours!

We had a particularly cool bonding session on Tuesday when, instead of going to normal lessons, we all headed to Ikebukuro Sunshine City to attend a festival for foreign students of Japanese. A week or so ago at school a few of us had volunteered to take part in various activities and when the lots were drawn, my classmate Chris found himself signed up for arm wrestling while I was given the opportunity to take part in a kimono fashion show. Sadly I missed Chris’s valiant efforts at the arm wrestling table (he won his first match and lost his second, gaining third place overall), as I was being prodded, pulled, stuffed, tutted and shoved into my kimono. If the tiny ladies who were dressing the students were surprised to be presented with a large-boned, big-busted westerner as one of the ‘models’ they hid it well although I think my dressers would have preferred one of the petite Chinese students who were also modelling. All was well though, and the two ladies dressing me got to work with the various layers of undergarments, followed by the main kimono under-dress, the outer garment, and finally all the different layers that were needed to support the obi (belt) and then to decorate it. The whole process took about an hour and a half and involved about nine layers in all. The kimono was wrapped quite tightly around my legs, and the obi bound me from my hips to my bust, so I was forced to walk with tiny ladylike steps…quite different to striding around in a pair of jeans! I never figured out how one uses the loo while wearing a kimono. I think perhaps the answer is that one doesn’t. I was certainly told that I wouldn’t be able to go from when I started being dressed to when the kimono came off a couple of hours later. Some of the other girls were having their hair done by the women who had dressed them. The Chinese and Korean girls definitely had the best hair for this. One of the women dressing me looked at my above-shoulder-length, flyaway hair with pity and slight dismay but again, she made the best of her lot and pulled and scraped what she could into a ponytail, which she decorated with some silk flowers.

The two ladies at each end were dressing us. The lady in the dark blue
kimono was very experienced and was teaching the others
how to tie our obi.

Beautiful obi

Once we were all dressed, we were called together for a rehearsal. This involved many instructions being said very quickly in Japanese, a lot of nodding and bowing and people asking whether we’d understood. We of course all nodded, bowed and said ‘yes, certainly’. In the end it all went OK – we got onto the stage and showed off our beautiful kimono. We had to show the front, the beautifully tied obi at the back, and hold our sleeves up so the audience could see the full length of the material and the distinctive T-shape of the garment. Then we were each passed the microphone in turn and, in true Miss World style, had to say our name, our school and our country all in Japanese. I wanted to say something about world peace and dolphins but sadly my Japanese doesn’t stretch that far. I see this experience as merely the first rung on the ladder that is my gaijin-kimono-modelling career though, so perhaps a few more fashion shows down the line I’ll have mastered the language sufficiently to wax lyrical about cute animals and major political events. I’ll keep you posted.

Team fashion show!

Once we’d all said our bit and been enthusiastically cheered by the audience of our classmates and teachers, we all filed off the stage to have our kimono removed. This took another 20 minutes. I can’t imagine what it must be like to wear one every day, or what time the beautifully presented dressing ladies in their perfect kimono with perfect hair must have got up to be ready at the festival for 9.30am.

Having changed back into my skirt, t-shirt and cardigan, all of which contain lycra, I felt strangely wobbly without the security afforded by having the tight obi round my middle. I also felt very sweaty! I went to find the rest of my classmates and we wandered around the rest of the festival stands, making jewellery and badges and being given information about where else we could study in Japan. Chris and I were given a free lunch for being joiner-inners so we said goodbye to the rest of our class and headed off to the canteen area for tandoori chicken naan, broccoli, a cherry tomato and two chips. All eaten with chopsticks and washed down with apple juice.

Stephen and Chris having a whole lot of fun at the jewellery-bashing table.

I love my Japanese classes. Yes, I know education is a basic human right, but at this point in time I’m enjoying it so much that it feels like a complete luxury. I am a self-confessed swot and am having the time of my life being back in the classroom! Ask me again next week once we’ve started with the kanji but I’m pretty sure my answer will be the same, unless of course my brain has dribbled out of my ear…

またね!

Organised fun

Japan is an extremely well-ordered country. The trains, the road works, the restaurants, the schools, the offices…everything runs in a timely and organised fashion. Nothing is done in half measures either: if you’re going to dig a hole in the ground you get 15 people to do it; if you’re going to make sure commuters get on the train in the morning, you put a member of staff at every door to push them on; the secondary school we can see from our flat currently has the following sports activities taking place concurrently – baseball game x 1, football games x 2, tennis games x 3, kendo sessions x 2, badminton games x 4, general fitness session x 1. And talking of order, the five o’clock bell is just about to be rung around the city to tell people it’s home time. I can hear this even from our hermetically sealed 32^nd floor apartment. 

The organisation doesn’t stop when you leave your place of study or work but extends into the domain of free time too.  We’ve been observers of and occasionally participants in some well and truly organised fun.

Takao-san

Last weekend we went for a walk up Mount Takao, which is a small peak in the range that starts to the west of Tokyo and includes Mount Fuji. We’d just gone for a walk on a bank holiday Monday because we felt like getting out of the city and doing some exercise. And so had everyone else. On arrival at Takaosanguchi Station we decided to have lunch, after which we chose the Inariyama Trail by which to make our ascent. This was described on the information board as following a ridge, being steep in parts, and affording some stunning views. All were true.

We were slightly concerned at the beginning that everyone else knew something we didn’t as we appeared to be the only people going up while everyone else was coming down. Passing that many people did give us a chance to practice our konnichiwa many times which was good fun. And our fears of ending up on a deserted mountain top were allayed when we reached the summit, which was heaving with people who had taken up their picnic lunches to eat with a view of Mount Fuji. Even at four in the afternoon with the sun thinking about setting and a haze loitering over the horizon, we could discern the outline of this impressive and much-revered peak. Never fear, we will definitely be climbing this while we’re here, and it will most certainly be the height of organised outdoor fun and general wonderfulness! 

We decided to take a different route down and found ourselves with hordes of other people striding back towards the station. I say striding, but in some places there were so many people that we were almost queuing to get round bends or through narrow bits. It didn’t really matter though, as everyone was in a friendly, outdoorsy kind of mood, and the surroundings really were so wonderful that it was a truly fantastic day.

Our route

Natural staircase created by tree roots

More steps?!

Marker showing we'd reached the top

Stunning views over Tokyo (a little hard to make out in this photo!)

Even the snakes are well-organised. The good ones are on the right;
the bad on the left

We couldn't really work out what this sign meant,
but the monkeys are amusing!

On the way down we visited this beautiful Buddhist temple, Takaosan
Yakuoin Yukij. The complex is huge and sits very quietly on the
side of the mountain

Grand Prix

Last Sunday, Simon was taken on a work jolly. And what a jolly it was. The Grand Prix, live at the Suzuka Circuit, transported by bullet train no less! I wasn’t invited and I’m still sore about this, but it is such a cool thing to have done that I have had the good grace to include it in my blog… It was a 5am start (I didn’t get up like a good WAG to see him off but grunted goodbye from the bed as he left) to get him onto a bullet train at 6am. You do not want to be late for a bullet train – if it says it leaves at 06:00 that’s when it leaves. Not at 06:01, not at 06:00:30, not even at 06:00:00.001, but at 06:00:00.000 on the dot. He made it, which was a good start. After a 90 minute journey, followed by another hour or so on a local train, followed by another journey, this time on a bus, he and his workmates arrived along with the other 154,895 attendees that the circuit accommodates. This was serious organisation in action – no hold ups, no problems, just straight to the seats to take in the action. It looks like it was totally amazing. Engine-revving, petrol-smelling, ear-shattering, sun-burning, beer-drinking, Jenson Button-cheering amazing. Obviously the Japanese supporters weren’t cheering for Button; in further adherence to the organised fun rule they frantically waved their flags every time their driver, Kamui Kobayashi, appeared, and stopped as soon as he had passed. All in perfect unison.

After the day’s races were over, all 155,000 attendees left the course with no jostling, no panic and no problems and Simon got home around 10pm. The organisation required successfully to manoeuvre that many people around in a timely and calm fashion is mind-boggling. It looks and sounds like it was one hell of a day!

Sunrise from the Shinkansen at 6am

Made it!

The stands start filling up...

Kamui Kobayashi's there, wave your flags!

Flags down, he's gone past

A lot of beer was had and a lot of sunburn was got!

Origami

While Simon’s been getting all manly at the formula one, I’ve been indulging in slightly more sedate free time activities like the ancient art of origami. (Perhaps I could make myself a Grand Prix ticket for the next race and sneak in with that…!) I found an amazing origami centre in Ochanomizu which, as luck would have it, is on the same metro line as our apartment. I’ve managed to limit myself to three visits so far, but have already been given a loyalty card! The first time I went the centre director, Kazuo Kobayashi, was giving a demonstration so I joined the other ladies crowding round him to see what he was making. At one point Kobayashi-san asked me where I was from so I said England, whereupon everyone looked apologetic and someone said they didn’t speak English very well. I didn’t consider this to be a problem but they seemed to be saddened by it. It was all OK in the end though – I heard the lady next to me chatting away in fluent German to the lady next to her. I said to them that I spoke German so then had the slightly surreal experience of watching an origami demonstration given in Japanese, being translated into German for me and a couple of others. Kobayashi-san did know the phrase ‘English rose’, with which he addressed me as he gave me a beautiful flower that he’d just made. I liked that.

I bought a book (which Kobayashi-san signed for me) telling me how to make various things for some of the festivals that take place throughout the year here. So far I’ve made a samurai helmet for Simon, a couple of photo frames, small obina and mebina dolls and some kusudama flowers. I’ve also decided to make senbazuru, which is 1,000 cranes that you string together to hang in your home. It represents health and loyalty, and is also supposed to grant the maker one wish. After a solid start my tsuru making has dwindled slightly, and I’m currently on around 100. Thus far my pièce de résistance is a dragon boat, complete with two-man crew and five passengers. Seriously, I think I may have found my spiritual home and can lose hours cutting, folding and sticking little bits of pretty paper. 

Kobayashi-san showing us how it's done

A rose for a rose! (a slightly blurry one...!)

Heaven on a dining room table

Little dragon boat sailing high on the 32nd floor

That’s just a small taste of the well-organised fun we have been having since we’ve been here. It’s an incredibly calm place, even during rush hour, weirdly. You just have to have faith in the organisation and know that whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re going, there will be several hundred other people with you, there will be a set of protocols that everyone follows so just watch what they’re doing, and you’ll have a lovely and well-ordered time when you get there!

Until the next time…

Food, glorious food!

As you all know, I love my food. I thought it would be apposite, therefore, to write a post dedicated entirely to this fantastic stuff, and in particular the weird and wonderful things we have been eating over the last month. 

With only three exceptions, we have eaten Japanese or Korean food for every lunch and dinner. The exceptions have been big ones though, so I’ll deal with those first. The first one wasn’t so bad – we found a lovely floating bar/restaurant in Shinagawa called The Waterline. The beer was Japanese and very tasty, and the food was excellent. We had pizza, chilli con carne and nachos and left feeling extremely satisfied. The next one was a bit more gaijin-tastic – we were invited to dinner by Simon’s company and went to the Outback Steak House, an Australian-themed, American chain. I embraced the menu fully by having a rack of ribs. A very pleasant evening! The third one was the whopper – last Sunday evening we both had massive cravings for a burger. Having researched burger joints in Tokyo we discovered that there’s a restaurant called the West Park Café just round the corner from our apartment building. So we trundled along to check it out and it looked very nice, but there was nobody in it. Hooters next door, on the other hand, was heaving so…you guessed it…we had our Sunday dinner of giant burgers being served by scantily-clad, very beautiful women in this all-American (with a Japanese twist) favourite. It was highly amusing and the burgers really hit the spot!

But apart from that we’ve truly been embracing the indigenous cuisine. Of lunch and dinner, lunch tends to be the bigger meal and you can often find set menus consisting of several dishes for around 800 yen (between £6 and £7), sometimes with extra stuff thrown in; I was delighted that the negi ramen I had the other day came with a free bowl of rice on the side!

Here are photos of some of the delights in which we’ve been indulging.

Negi Ramen

Negi ramen from Higomans 

This is a large noodle soup that’s got a bit of pork in it, and is served piled high with spring onions (negi). My favourite so far is from Higomans, a restaurant under the train tracks at Shinagawa. The walls are decorated with amazing posters of Japanese caricatures, advertising the sticky end to which you will come if you don’t eat Higomans’ food! They also play Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on a loop, which is surreal but brilliant. The negi ramen at Higomans also comes with a dollop of chilli sauce on top (the red bit in the photo) and on the table are pots of gherkins, garlic and more chilli, that you can add to taste.

Okonomiyaki

Homemade okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki comes originally from Osaka and is sometimes referred to as Japanese pizza but apart from the shape, and the fact it’s got flour in it, it’s not that similar to pizza. It’s made from a base of finely chopped cabbage, ginger, garlic, onions, and whatever else happens to be lying around, mixed into a thick batter-like paste with flour, water and an egg. You can add other things like prawns, meat, fish etc. and you can also put bacon on the top while it’s cooking. Once you’ve mixed all the ingredients together well you turn it onto a hot plate to cook on both sides (the yaki bit of the word refers to the hot plate – it means ‘grilled’). Sometimes this hot plate will be in the middle of your table so you do it yourself, sometimes you can sit round it at a long bar, and sometimes it’s in the restaurant kitchen and the waiter will bring you the cooked article. Needless to say, the places where you get to do it yourself are the most fun! Once your okonomiyaki is cooked you cover the top in the most amazing mixture of okonomi sauce (kind of like plum sauce only with more of a kick), Japanese mayonnaise, katsuobashi (finely flaked, dried fish) and shredded nori (seaweed). The photo is actually of one that we made at home the other night. Impressive, huh?

Monjayaki (monja)

Monja - looks awful, tastes fantastic!

This is Tokyo’s take on Osaka’s okonomiyaki. The base is similar except there’s more liquid, which means cooking it is even more fun! First of all you make a ring on the hot plate with the solid ingredients, then you pour some of the liquid into the middle and mix in the solid stuff from the outside. You do this two or three times until all the liquid’s been added. It’s exactly like making cement! The finished monja looks like a splatty pile of sick on the grill, particularly if you manage to shape it as beautifully as we did for this photo, but it tastes very, very good. You’ll have to come over and try it for yourself to believe me!

Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu in the middle, with fried mince on the left and a prawn on the right.

This is breaded and deep-fried pork cutlet and another firm favourite with me. Probably because of the fried part. It can come served with any or all of the following: rice, miso soup, pickles, shredded cabbage, spaghetti, mustard, Japanese tartare sauce, a lump of cold tofu with spring onions on top. It is absolutely delicious! On Saturday we were in a tonkatsu restaurant in Akihabara and ordered the lunch menu, which consisted of a pork cutlet and a mince pattie, also breaded and deep-fried. Somehow we ended up with a free giant prawn each, also breaded and deep-fried! What a wonderful lunch that was.

Tempura

Tasty tempura

Tempting tendon

Think of the lightest, least greasy, most delicate batter you’ve ever had, then imagine it lighter and even more tasty. That’s the standard of tempura batter from even the smallest, most unassuming restaurants here. The best one we’ve found so far is just down the road from Simon’s office so I’ve popped down to meet him for lunch a few times. The batter is made with iced water. Sometimes it’s made with sparkling water to keep it really light. Fish, prawns or vegetables (including leaves) are quickly coated in the batter then deep fried for a few seconds until they’re a very light golden colour. The first photo is a plate of tempura with accompanying dishes (similar to those that accompany tonkatsu). The second is a bowl of tendon; tempura sitting on a bed of rice, topped with a sweet soy sauce just before serving. Delicious.

Miscellaneous

Truly it was a joyful time

I love that these nuts are called ‘With Beer!’ We did indeed have a fantastic time eating them, although we had them with G&T so perhaps were even more joyful?

Exciting selection of sauces and toppings

Freeze dried negi. Just add water.

The finished product. I was very pleased with my culinary expertise.

Pot noodles come in so many different shapes and sizes, it’s very difficult to choose between them! This one had an interesting looking array of small sachets containing things to add to the noodles, one of which was a block of freeze dried negi. Ingenious.

Not entirely sure what these are made of, or what's in the sauce

These are sweet sticky balls. I don’t know what they’re balls of, but we’ve seen lots of people selling them hot on the corner of the street. Simon bought some at the supermarket as I’d been banging on about them for days. We heated them up in the microwave and got stuck in. They’re not that sweet, although they are definitely sticky! I wasn’t a massive fan of these, but I’m yet to try the ones from a street vendor so I’ll report back when I have.

Slight food mishaps

We’ve done pretty well at deciphering menus here there and everywhere. Sometimes when we’re feeling adventurous we’ve gone for dishes written entirely in kanji, as we know we’ve got no idea what we’re asking for. Most of the time this has worked out well but we’ve ended up with tripe stew a couple of times (Simon’s not a fan – I quite like it) and I’ve had the weirdest gloopy white stuff that once came with beans and seaweed, and once came on top of rice. I’ve since learned that this may be a sort of potato…but it’s got the consistency of the stuff that surrounds the hatching pods in the Aliens movies. It’s the only thing in many, many years that even I’ve not quite been able to wade my way through. Oh and we had tongue on a BBQ the other night, but that was very tasty indeed!

Anything else

Of course we’ve been eating sushi and sashimi. Sadly I’ve got no photos of the very beautiful dishes that we ate a few times in a lovely sushi restaurant in Shinagawa. It can be pretty pricey but there are a lot of restaurants that serve it round our new place, so we’re looking forward to checking those out. On the long list of things to do is an early morning visit to Tsukiji fish market. I may even get up the courage to haggle for a whole tuna (although since they sell for between £4,000 and £10,000 per fish I’ll probably need to save up for a while first).

So that’s it for now. 99% delicious, 1% not so tasty, but definitely interesting and makes for a fun evening out!

Until the next time…