July 26, 2014

Saturday - Hot and Sunny


An interesting day.

I got up this morning to watch Gordon Ramsay.  F came home just as it was starting, so we both half watched it.  Afterwards I was tired so I went to lie down for a while, of course I dozed a little too.  F started watching boxing or fighting, so I left him to it.  

I got back up around 12 and we discussed lunch.  It took us a while and we finally decided around 1:45 to go to a local place that we often go to.  It wasn't the best choice today.  

They had a new waitress and she was awkward and a little intimidated I think.  People at other tables had to ask for more water and she completely missed the fact that F needed some too.  We were at the next table!  The starters were good as always, but I had chosen to have pork and vegetable rolls with a yuzu-koshou sauce as my main course.  F had fish today.  Well, I ate half of my first roll and discovered that the pork wasn't completely cooked.  Worse than that really, it was raw.  

I ate part of the second roll. It wasn't quite as bad, but part of the pork was definitely pinkish.  Sigh.  I ate what I thought was safe and left the rest.  When the "head" waitress took my plate she noticed that I'd left rather a lot of pork and was very surprised to see the uncooked meat.  I ended up getting a second plate of the same thing.  It wasn't raw, but there was still a tinge of pink in places.  

Anyway, as long as I don't get sick I'm quite pleased with the way the restaurant handled the situation.  I would have liked my DH to have spoken up earlier to either of the waitresses, but I know Japanese people don't like to make a fuss generally.

After lunch, F brought me back home and went off to see his mother.  She had some errands she needed to run. He was gone for a while.

I watched a bit of TV and tootled around on my computer.  Didn't do as much as I wanted, but it was okay.

Around 6 we went out to a yakitori restaurant.  It was F's choice, and I was okay with it.  I like this particular place and tonight was no exception.  The main point of interest about this place is that the majority of the food is pork.  Usually yakitori is thought to be chicken, but in this area, pork is more often used.  We had a nice meal, although it was quite high protein!

After dinner we drove over to the movie theatre, but on the way we saw a festival was going on down Ginza Street, so we found some parking and went to see it.  There was singing, games for kids, food stalls, in fact, if we'd known about it earlier, we probably could have had dinner there and had more fun!  We did have a tiny kakigori each and then headed back to the car.  

Tonight we went to see Any Day Now with Alan Cumming and it was great!  It was set in the 70's and for me, it was so evocative of that time period!  The way the characters acted or reacted, the clothing and the interior decorations were exactly how I remembered the time. It was a very good movie, with a plot that resonates even now.  

After the movie, F and I came home.  I put on the TV, but didn't really watch anything.  I turned it off a bit later. Late Saturday night has become a wasteland for good TV.  Even the pay channels are letting me down these days.  Sigh.  

I made a pot of tea and it was wonderful.  I had a cup and will drink more tomorrow when it's cold.  

I have no idea what we'll get up to tomorrow.  F has no ideas, and I haven't been anywhere in ages, so would really like to go somewhere or do something!  Got to go.  Night!

2 comments:

Mieko said...

It was sad you had "pink" pork. And I'm glad you are fine. These days, YAKI-TON is getting as popular as YAKI-TORI, isn't it?

Helen said...

Hello! I know...I think that it must have been a cooking problem or something...

Yaki-ton! I've never heard that expression, but it makes sense. Yes, up here in Tsuruoka, Yaki-ton is quite usual. The Shonai pork is very good quality, so pork is often used instead of chicken here.

I seem to be okay, so hopefully I won't get sick!

Thanks for visiting Mieko :-)