Friday night I met up with Antoine for dinner and drinks. We decided to try all new places today, so we started at The New York, which had a good atmosphere but a little too quiet. We had two beers there and then chatted with the bartender to try to get restaurant recommendations. It turned out he liked Western music (i.e. American/British) and spoke quite a bit of English.
He consulted around and recommended é‡‘éš (goldfish), which was not a dish but the name of an Okinawan restaurant in town. I had always wanted to try it, so it worked out great. I liked the bartender – the next day he was off to hit the beach in Guam and practice his English.
é‡‘éš turned out to be pretty good. Pretty healthy food, too. We had rice with goya, pork and kimchee. Also, we ordered up tofu with a peanut sauce, okinawan stir-fried noodles, and some sweet fried pork.
They sat us in the middle of the dark restaurant next to a big indoor pond full of goldfish. Because of the location we were at the center of attention, and everyone was watching to see how we ordered, how we handled our chopsticks, what we ate, etc. Lots of pressure. I didn’t really mind – it kind of goes with the territory nowadays.
Most of the night with Antoine we talked about the status of his relationship with Miwako. While over the past couple of years they’ve gone through numerous “rough patches” involving separations and such, Antoine is convinced that this latest one is the last. He considers himself single, and he told his parents as much a little while ago. So I guess the wedding is off. Anyway, we covered that topic to Antoine’s satisfaction.
After dinner we hit a small bar that I had walked by a while back and wanted to try. After a beer there we decided to wrap things up and call it night. I walked Antoine back to his station and said goodbye, then I headed to meet up with Kuniko since she was in town drinking with some coworkers. She had had a tough night, so we went out for a coffee and a piece of white chocolate torte to commiserate.
By the time we got home I was pretty tired out, not just from the drinking and walking around but also from the listening and talking – I felt like a psychologist just getting off work. It was a fun night, though, and certainly better than staying home and watching baseball on TV.
