First Lunch at Suju!

I've taken on a few new projects of which I need to confer with London and Seattle/San Francisco work associates. That means doing loads of evening and night calls. For this period, both the man and I end up working at night a lot more. We're free to churn out words, graphs and charts in the day, but come 6pm, the work calls begin. We even have to shift the nature of the dog's walks- a long one in the morning and a shorter one in the evenings. If we're really pressed for time, we do two short walks for her later in the day (at 5pm and 10pm).

For this reason, it's tough to meet friends for dinner unless we schedule way in advance. Lunches are way easier to arrange nowadays. Although at whichever venue I go, with the face mask off, I no longer wish to hang out for hours in such close contact with strangers. Sitting 2m away from the other table doesn't mean squat because we're still sharing central air-conditioning. Minimizing time spent in proximity manages the risk of exposure. 

SOoooOooo glad to sit down to lunch with J at Suju at Mandarin Gallery. We rarely meet for dinner since schedules don't match. So it has always been lunch, and for the past almost-four months, we've been doing video calls at lunch instead if we could block out that chunk of time. 

With Phase 2 that began on 19 June, we can meet IRL for a bit. Of course we had to go to Suju for comfort food! As far as affordable Japanese izakaya-style food goes, Suju still serves the best steamed white fluffy rice! That's not quite satisfying when we have that delivered and it's cold. Heating it up in the pot or the microwave isn't quite the same. There's something to be said about eating piping hot food straight from the kitchen.

Funny J ordered her favorite shio-sake (塩鮭, salt grilled fillet of salmon). During the past three months, she has been pan-searing this at home to perfection, and she still ordered it at the restaurant. Hahahahah. She claims that Suju does a better job than she can. Okay lor. Well...... I can't get away from ordering their shogayaki (豚の生姜焼き, ginger pork) either, and I refuse to cook it myself at home. It simply is superior to whatever I can produce! They have a stir-fried miso pork and cabbage dish (豚肉とキャベツ) on the rotating menu, but it isn't as satisfying as the permanent menu item of shogayaki. Oof.