Last night we met up with Inoguchi sensei and his wife for dinner in Kobe. Inoguchi sensei had made reservations at a swanky Chinese restaurant south of the station, in the upscale neighborhood around the Diamaru department store. It has been a long time since we had seen his wife – she is really nice and has a great sense of humor. When you combine her with him, they tend to set each other up for jokes and lots of dry humor.
The restaurant was underground in a mini-plaza underneath an office building, and was decorated more in a European style than Chinese. The appetizer was also a little more French than Chinese, but all the dishes after that were more in line with what I’d expect to eat at a Chinese restaurant. In my part of Japan, Chinese food is considered slightly upscale, with a few notable exceptions (ramen, gyoza, fried rice).
My favorite dish of the night was a pork dish with hot peppers and eggplant. I like the spicy dishes. Inoguchi sensei was a little bummed because the menu had changed for the new month, and they didn’t have frog on the special menu. He related a story of when he went to China and had eaten frog – it was the best dish he had on the whole trip.
Dinner was a little pricey (about 6000 yen a head) because two people split a carafe of wine, but I thought it was a really good place. Somewhere you’d take someone if you wanted to impress them – not exactly a family style noodles and rice kind of place.
We talked about our winter plans over dinner, and it sounds like we’ve got similar ideas. They are going to be in Singapore, and we are talking Viet Nam. Maybe there is a way we can combine trips just a little bit and spend some time in Singapore with them. Not sure how it’ll work out, but they know the country pretty well, so that would be a big advantage for us.
After dinner we sat around a table at Starbucks and had coffee, and then headed back to the train station. We promised to invite them over for tacos in the future – hopefully in October sometime. It was a fun night and I hope to see them again soon.
