Yakiniku

I finally made it home! After four weeks on the road I am glad to be back in our tiny home in Iwakuni. I've missed Dustin and Zero! And as much fun as exploring Tokyo and Okinawa was it just wasn't the same without Dustin. Work sent me all around Japan and I was forced to "sink or swim." I learned how to travel by multiple trains, buses, taxis, planes, and the shinkansen. It was exhausting!

But, as always, the food was delicious. Which brings me to today's post.

Last night we explored out a different direction from base. We walked out the gate closest to our housing area. This whole side of base is surrounded by lotus fields so it took some walking to make it out to the main roads. We found a 100 yen store. Unlike dollar stores back home these actually have very good things in them. The quality is really good too. We saw some sushi-go-round restaurants, but didn't try them. This is where you sit around a big circle and the sushi comes around on conveyor belts and you take what you want. The price is calculated by the color of the plate.

But we didn't eat there.

Instead we kept walking until we got to a very busy bridge. Rather than try to cross we decided to walk into a restaurant on our side of the river. It had no kanji signs we recognized and didn't display any romanji. We weren't sure what kind of restaurant it was, but we were starving after all our walking.

So in we went.

We were seated and found out it was a yakiniku restaurant! Yum! Yakiniku means 'grilled meat' and is similar to a fondue restaurant without the broth. Instead a large grill is at the table and you cook your meat and vegetables on it.

Now I have a confession to make. We've eaten at a yakiniku restaurant before, but I never sat down and posted the pictures from it. I know! I'm sorry! Last time we ate it we tried cow tongue. It was not to my liking!

This time we opted not to eat yakiniku and order other things off the menu.

Salad

We started with their house salad. It had lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, boiled eggs, and sausage. It also had some spindly white things on top that were sweet. Not exactly sure what they were but they were good! Side note: ever tried eating a slippery tomato with chopsticks? Tough stuff. As we were enjoying our salad they brought out our soup. I love the seaweed soup in Japan. It is phenomenal! We both ordered beef bowls. It's a cold dish with rice, ground beef, green onions, and chopped egg.

You mix it all together with the spoon then eat with your chopsticks. It was really good. Almost a sweet taste. The ground beef has no seasoning, but I imagine some taco seasoning would have made it pretty good!

Our dinner was so good! We finished off with some soft serve ice cream. I was so excited for ice cream that I forgot to take pictures! Dustin got custard pudding and I got dark chocolate. The Japanese love their ice cream... I am in the right place!