Back home after six days in Japan. Most of my meals weren't of the life-changing type, but I didn't really go there to eat (shocking). I did have an excellent bowl of ramen at Ichiran, this custom-shop type place that's as bizarre as it is delicious, with individual phone-booth seating along a tiny space on a Nagoya sidestreet. You pay for the meal beforehand on a vending machine type thing, then fill in your order on a white sheet. Before you know it, a hand delivers the hot bowl of pork bone broth-based noodles and you slurp them up in relative anonymity.
One thing I absolutely loved in Japan? No tip required, ever. This was such a breath of fresh air when you're used to paying 20% tip everywhere in LA. It also made the meals cheap compared to common notions of food expense in Japan.
I definitely didn't miss the hustle and bustle of the LA restaurant scene while I was gone, but I did dearly miss dining with my fiancee over a quiet meal at a nice restaurant. Thankfully we got our fill at La Cabanita, where I had a large bowl of caldo de pollo while Christine had the mole and poblano enchiladas.
Proof that something's different? Well I had a pretty "healthy" bowl of chicken soup (caldo de pollo) and then had a quarter of a cantelope, a banana, and a smidgen of nuts for dinner. My appetite seems smaller. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
2 comments:
Welcome back :) I heard Japan's portions tend to be a lot more sensible and more in line with how much a person should eat (as opposed to the generally oversized portions of U.S. meals.)
And enjoy the healthy kick while you can, foodbloggers tend to have no shortage of opportunities to splurge and sin ;)
Never give your stomach a chance to shrink. Hopefully the Bike Bender will help to build up your tolerance again.
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