Eating My Way Across Japan.

I had a delightful dinner with my friend Aki tonight. We met up in Roppongi Hills, a super consumerism structure that features shopping, dinning, art museums, rooftop aquariums, movie houses, giant spider sculptures, and lord only knows what else. We ate in a super chic, and very tasty, bar that specialized in tapas, sushi, and exotic drinks. Aki had a pineapple Mojito, while I had kiwi, and we nibbled at a lavish selection of dishes (including bacon-wrapped salmon, grilled scallops, seared beef sashimi, and rillette paté).

Over the course of our dinner conversation, the subject of food came up, and I mentioned that I felt as if I’d been eating my way across Japan--with regional dishes and ice cream every where. Aki pointed out that for the Japanese, food is a very important topic of conversation and that after a trip a Japanese person will often talk first about what they ate and how tasty it was. (I am seriously like the Japanese in this respect, I think. Consider, for instance, the beginning of this particular post.)

When I mentioned that I had tasted, and loved, the murasaki imo (sweet potato) ice cream in Ueno Park, Aki was pretty impressed. I guess, generally, most foreigners won’t eat strange foods like murasaki imo, which is not how I roll at all. Aki suggested I try goma (sesame) ice cream if I can find it, and I now consider myself to be on a mission. She then told me a very interesting thing about imo. Apparently, during the Second World War, when food was strictly rationed, the poorer people could not afford to buy the staple Japanese food--rice. These people instead subsisted on a diet of imo (potatoes). To this day, the word imo is used as a teasing term to refer to someone when they look or act poor.

We talked of other things than just food, of course, and I’m proud to say that while a good bit of the conversation was in English, some of it was in Japanese. Aki is super supportive of my learning Japanese, and very, very helpful. All in all, it was a lovely evening--all the more so because of how nice it was to be welcomed back to Tokyo by a friend.

(And the grilled scallops were really to die for, too.)

Luncheon in Shinjuku.

I met up with Eunja, the girl I sat next to on the plane coming over, this afternoon for a tonkatsu lunch and idle stroll through the megalithic shopping byways of Shinjuku-eki and its surrounding environs. The entire afternoon was extremely enjoyable. Eunja is Korean, and though she speaks no English her Japanese is perfect. We talked for three hours, as we dined, walked, and shopped, covering a number of subjects--many of them related to food (a fact that amused me when I considered it in connection with what Aki told me last night).

Eunja was shocked to find that, though I ate a Japanese teriyaki burger at a second-class fast food joint called “Freshness Burger,” I had never been to McDonald’s in Japan. After we stuffed ourselves with a variety of tonkatsu dishes (including cheese-filled tonkatsu… yum!), she insisted we go over to McDonald’s for an after-lunch treat. Eunja had iced coffee, and I had a vanilla McFlurry (complete with Oreo crumbles). We both laughed over the irony of my having my first McFlurry in Japan rather than in the US, where they are readily available.

Of course, in the grand tradition of McDonald’s, the McFlurry didn’t really agree with my stomach (there’s a reason I never eat there). But the novelty of the experience and Eunja’s obvious enjoyment over taking me to something I had never tried before were well worth the moderate gastric discomfort. We have plans to meet up again next week for a trip out to Odaiba together, and at some point I’ll be going to her family’s restaurant for dinner.

I love making new friends!