Good food

I keep forgetting to take pictures of my meals here before I eat them. DAMN! It's probably because I see the food and it just looks so delicious and we just all dive in. Of course, there's that coveted last bite on the plate that nobody wants to take because, HORROR- that would be rude- there's even a phrase that you say when this happens: "enryonokatamari". That, of course, is my phoenetic translation of what my students tried teaching me, so there's probably a few spaces and vowels missing there.

Apparently I have quite the eclectic vocabulary -I have this random mix of teenage boys' slang ("for real?!?", "dude, buy me something!"), cute teenage girl words ("good friends!", "love! like!") and then some of the uber super polite phrases that my landlady has taught me ("thank you very much for all the kindness and generosity that you have provided for me"), etc.

Um, yeah, so what spurred me to write this entry is that I went to my favorite restaurant in all of Japan again tonight with my best buds here Bryn and Jannie. It's an izakaya in Iwataki (the next town over- technically the name's been changed to "Yosano" but nobody calls it that yet). Anyway, it's got the most delicious food ever. Since Bryn is absolutely fluent and charming in his Japanese, he usually just orders for us, and tonight was no exception. We always get edamame to start, and tonight we got a selection of perfectly fried non-greasy octopus, fried potato croquettes with some sort of divine savory filling; a pot of heaven- baked potato, bacon, and cheese dish; a stir-fried (?) chicken and vegetable dish; a "Japanese-style" salad which consisted of seared bonito (a type of fish) over lettuce, onions, cucumbers, and cabbage; cucumbers w/ a miso dipping sauce... I'm sure I'm missing something but anyway, I have to remember to take pictures!!!