Ranchi-Pati: Lunch Bunch, Japanese-Style

There's some catching up to do before we head to Narita Airport this afternoon to pick up James, Emily, and Suzi.

Harumi (second from left) visited Japan last week. Two years ago she made a valiant effort to pound some basic Japanese language skills into me, Mike, and our neighbor Stu on Wednesday evenings. Then her husband retired from the Navy, they moved to Alabama, and I promptly forgot everything she taught me. This was painfully evident at the ranchi-pati in her honor when she and Hiroko had to take turns translating the conversation for me.

When Matt goes to college this fall, I am going to get serious about learning the Japanese language. That and plowing through Ulysses ought to keep me out of trouble.

Yuuko (far left, above) gets credit for discovering the wonderful subterranean restaurant, Romanee. Everyone but Hisayo ordered korukke (potato croquettes) which were garnished with an extremely refreshing Italian leaf. Hiroko bravely bit off a stem and broke out in a smile so - after waiting a couple of minutes to make sure she didn't die - I followed suit and was rewarded with an explosion of icy cold water in my mouth.

The menu was in Japanese and offered four different meals for 1,000 yen each. Two were fish, one was the croquette, and the fourth was a salad. Mike will definitely want to experience this restaurant so I'm pretty sure we will be taking Suzy and the kids there sometime in the next few days.

Rin Rin: Chinese Lunch in Kamakura

"What are you doing, Robin?" "When you've lived in Japan for three years like me, Victoria, you know to never leave the house without sticking a pair of socks in your purse because chances are you'll be taking your shoes off sooner or later."

The first course circled the table on a lazy susan: cold chicken with sauce, some clear brown noodles that might have been seaweed, and each of those little spoons held a couple of cubes of jello that tasted like egg drop soup.





The second course was a ball of chicken floating in a clear broth. Three white cubes in the bottom of the bowl looked like potatoes but were not. The ball of chicken tasted exactly like Gerber's chicken dinner.

The third course was a lot more colorful than this but I had already eaten all the tastier morsels before remembering to take a picture. What's left are a lot of mushrooms, some chestnuts, and squid or cuttlefish (which might be the same thing and I actually ate three or four pieces without making an unpleasant face).

This is a side view of the squid/cuttlefish just to stress how incredibly mature I was at lunch today.

The fourth course was my favorite, perhaps because it was fried and drenched in a sweet and sour sauce. I have no idea what it was. Kim told me but I didn't recognize a single word that came out of her mouth and thought it best not to push for details.

"Psst, Robin! What's in the covered wooden cylinder?"

"Some sort of milky custard with some of those gelatin-covered seeds floating on top."

"Do you suppose this is dessert?"

"Yes, and it is quite delicious."

"Oh."

Wabi-Sabi: New Definitions

Eight adventurous eaters piled into Denise's van and set off on a grand adventure to Kamakura this morning. Our destination was Rin Rin, a Chinese restaurant on the other side of the mountain from the train station, hence the need to go by car.

We turned into one lane after another, each narrower than the one before, until we spotted Kim waiting at an intersection on her bicycle. She led us the final mile to the restaurant, uphill all the way. (Kim is in much better shape than most of the ladies in the car.)

Before entering the restaurant, we walked down the road and up some steep stone steps to Zuisenji Temple.
Our first view of the temple:
Kim (left) lives in Kamakura and knows all sorts of interesting information. Robin (right) was my guest today. It turns out they know each other through serving on the Ikebana board of directors.

The flowers and trees surrounding the temple are not the temple garden. The original garden is behind the temple and not open to visitors. It was laid out in 1327 in a style called wabi-sabi which, loosely translated, means "naturally imperfect." I intend to incorporate this word into my vocabulary, as in "I do not need a comb because I prefer to wear my hair wabi-sabi style" or "Sometimes I wear mascara but usually my face is wabi-sabi."
Most of the trees surrounding the temple have limbs propped up by mallets.


Victoria, 26, posing here with Mimi, is a welcome addition to the group. She arrived in Japan in July, just a few weeks after her wedding.

Next I'll show you what we ate (well, what we were served) for lunch at the Chinese restaurant.