It was a strange weekend – very strange. It started on a very good note with a meet-up with Inoguchi sensei after work on Friday. Together we went to a Thai restaurant near Motomachi station. It was good to see Inoguchi sensei – he’s always full of interesting conversation topics, and I’m always hoping some of his intelligence will rub off on me. We talked about his recent trip to Hong Kong, and talked about my future trip to India, and enjoyed some pretty good Thai food. When in Kobe eating Thai food one must measure the quality of the food by comparing with the top Thai restaurant – Baan Thai. I’m happy to report that this one did very well, and it wasn’t that hard to get a table. After dinner and coffee we called it a night, and I got home at a record-breaking 9 pm on a Friday.
Saturday I spent at home cleaning house, watching The Wire (season 3), doing laundry, and resting up. For dinner I went out to Red Spanky and had the master cook up some dinner. Since there was only one other customer I asked him to make up whatever he wanted for me, and ended up enjoying a baked chicken, cheese and meat sauce dish with a side of salmon salad and garlic toast. Yum. Soon after I finished eating things started getting busy, and unfortunately I was the only there were nobody really to talk to. My plan to practice speaking Japanese daunted, I checked out on the early side and headed towards home.
Since I felt like I had a little more party left in me I stopped in at “Jin” on the way home. Jin is a small drinking hole between our house and the station, so it is certainly in a convenient location. It is usually only open late, so it is pretty rare for me to drop in. This was the second time visiting, and despite that the master remembered my name (which is an impressive feat considering how strange my name is in Japan).
I wasn’t the only one – three women were drinking and laughing at the bar, and I squeezed in between them and a quiet old guy that appeared to be pretty drunk. The master served up some hot sake for me, along with a couple grilled sardines. I had a nice conversation with the ladies, one of whom was a train operator for JR. One lady ended up having to leave, so she had the master call a cab and then lurched towards the door once it arrived. That freed up a seat for a solitary, serious-looking gentleman that came in afterwards. He sat between me and the ladies, and didn’t really seem like the talkative type. That left me with the soused guy on my right, which also didn’t look like a good option for conversation. While the master was in the back cooking something, I sat and stared at the wall hoping she’d come back so I could check out and move on. I looked over at the drunk guy on my right and he suddenly sprayed all the beer that was in his mouth all over the counter and the bottles in front of him. Uh, yeah. Check, please!
Finally disentangled from Jin (and not likely going back), I was able to meet Kuniko at the train station coming back from her party, and we went home together and could go to sleep with the smell of smoke still in our hair.
Sunday we had a small get-together with Kuniko’s folks to celebrate her father’s birthday. Niro was turning 61, and so I cooked up some beef on the BBQ, Kuniko made some risotto and a salad, and we had a good time. I opened up a bottle of Benziger Merlot as well, and it really brought back memories of working here when it was called Martini & Prati winery.
Now we’ve got enough meat leftovers to feed an army of carnivores. While grilling a giant roast I also pulled out some carne asada that I had in the freezer and cooked it as well. Even after giving lots of food to Kuniko’s parents to take home we’ve still got way too much. I guess it will be an all-beef week.
