As expected, the sushi on Friday was excellent. The chef kept us full of various fish, and I think we had just about everything that they had in the shop. We had a couple of bottles of sake with dinner and reached a pretty good state of relaxation. Afterwards we stopped in Sannomiya to hit a wine bar that Kuniko wanted to try, and had a Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine was quite good, but the atmosphere was a little pretentious. The guy poured wine into the glass from a distance, a lot like you would pour tea at a middle eastern restaurant, creating a splashy oxidation that would probably give John Shafer a heart attack.
Saturday night we went over to Yoshi’s house and sat around outside enjoying grilled chicken. They had a yakitori set-up right on the table, so we could sit and turn the chicken while we talked. The weather was perfect – comfortable for an outdoor BBQ, and we discussed the upcoming trip to my folks place in California. They are very excited about coming. Akira really dug into the cheese platter – I can tell he’s going to enjoy the availability of delicious cheese in Sonoma. Full of wine and sake we caught a taxi to the station from their house, and got home a little late on Saturday night.
Sunday we used as a recovery day, renting movies and staying in most of the time, and then Monday we hosted Yoshi and family at our place for burgers on the grill. We had already planned on eating burgers at some point during the evening, so when we mentioned it and invited them to join us they jumped at the chance. It was nice to return the hospitality so quickly for the yakitori party, and we made it an early night since everyone had to work (and Akira had to go to school) the next day.
