That Stuff...

Every now and then I go to dinner at a local family's house. It's always great food and a great time. Who could pass up free beer and sake as well as a healthy portion of fish, vegetables, and other Japanese treats?

They invited me to a yakiniku restaurant after my new years trip (which I will get to later.) and I kindly agreed to go because, I love meat. Ah yes, let me explain Yakiniku real quick. Yaki means cook/baked/fried niku means meat. It's kind of like Korean BBQ I guess, you have a little burner at your table and a bunch of raw meat that you just fry up and dip in sauces.

I'd passed this restaurant many times but never went in because it is small and a bit intimidating. I entered with and was greeted with a fog of cigarette smoke. The room was about half the size of my current apartment all 7 customers were puffing away on their cigarettes. The exposed kitchen was run by one woman who stopped chopping some vegetables and turned around with a cigarette hanging from her lips "WELCOME!" she exclaimed in Japanese.

I sat down with the family I eat with. They ordered a giant bowl of chopped pig intestines. Not the best meat in the world, but by no means is it the worst. It's chewy but is basically flavorless so the idea of it is worse than the actual thing itself. Then came the plate of livers. I can get through liver but by no means have I ever craved a mouthful of cooked liver. The plate of chunked liver also had halved white onion on it... my goal was now, for ever 3 pieces of liver I eat, I will reward myself with one piece of grilled onion.

I ate more intestines and liver than I probably have in my body. So far, my body doesn't hate me for it. Whew.

After this we had some traditional Japanese new year foods. The first bowl was brought out and it looked like a hearty coleslaw with chunks of gefilte fish in it. "I don't like this at all, almost no one does... but you should try it!" is how it was offered to me. I took a scoop on my plate and dug in. (Can you say "dig in" when you're using chopsticks? Spoons dig, they're like mini shovels. Forks can also do some digging... but chopsticks pick... but... "Pick in" doesn't work. At all. Anyway...) I first thought "this tastes like coleslaw." then I thought "this tastes like garbage." then I decided on "this tastes like the way garbage smells...mixed with coleslaw." "What is in this?" I asked as I finished my helping of it. "Um... uh... hmm.... well... leftover sake and old fish... and vegetables." Was my response. So basically... garbage and coleslaw. I was dead on.

Other treats included pickled cucumbers which as we all know are just pickles. Then some kind of fish wrapped in some kind of leaf then pickled. Last was a piece of horseradish wrapped in fried tofu and then pickled. They love all things pickled here. Well, actually not everyone, the man next to me pointed to our pickled food and said "These are not foods for humans." Then shuttered as I took a bite.

We ended the meal with a classic Japanese take on Chinese food... gyoza and ramen. What a meal, what a meal.

Liver, intestines, pickled garbage-fish-vegetables, and then some.

Happy New Year!