Hot Is Best

It's a strange sort of day where 2 meals were spent at strange 'Japanese restaurants'. Neither of which are my choices, clearly. The girlfriend was very terrible and emphasized that I'm "very picky" about Japanese food. Since nobody was buying lunch and we went Dutch, it didn't matter that much. Anyway, since I didn't have any cravings and the amount of food ingested wasn't large, I didn't really care.

These eateries are about as authentic as some ramen shops in town. But I don't think very much of a self-proclaimed Japanese restaurant if they don't use sushi rice in general, and when they do, it's done with third grade grains. Worse, the other restaurant serves those fake crab sticks you see at cheap steamboat buffets, and proudly display a bunch of them at the sushi counter. Oh dear. I haven't even started on the quality of their tofu used, most evident in cold tofu. Never mind about the poor quality green tea and horrible wasabi that accompany the food.

I reiterate, at these eateries (I refuse to term them as restaurants), stick to cooked food. Hot preferably. Never make the mistake of ordering sashimi and sushi. If you don't have an issue with teriyaki chicken don or beef yakiniku don, gyozas, cutlets and the sorts, these are probably their best dishes. Oh, and some will do fairly decent selections of red bean, green tea and black sesame ice-cream. These eateries will rarely present you with fruits from Japan for dessert.

The day was saved by the humble teapot soup. I enjoyed that. They got that right. Rather well. It was flavorful and satisfying. At least that was something.