Japanese dinners

The food here is so good. I wish we could eat out 3-4 times a week. We have 2 reasons, though, not to do that. Isla and Asher! Their restaurant etiquette isn’t horrible when you keep it in perspective. They are, after all, just 3 and 1. Still, eating out (or anywhere) with Isla and Asher can be an exhausting exercise. So there’s our dilemma.

We’ve been trying to reach a happy medium by going out to eat with the kids once a week only, usually Friday evenings. And we dream of somehow getting our acts together enough to pull off an adults-only meal out every now and then, too. Until then, we’re making the most of our once a week restaurant outings with our kids.

Here are pictures from 2 recent restaurants. The first is a ramen house, with broth so delicious that Isla couldn’t spoon it in her mouth fast enough. She did what any rational, if not well-mannered, person would do. She took her straw out of her cup and put it in her ramen bowl. I secretly wished I could do the same.

The second restaurant is a fast food sushi house. Yes, you read that correctly! Imagine a conveyer belt snaking through a restaurant, with tables lined up all along it. You simply sit and start grabbing whatever looks good (and it all looked good). We ate edamame, octopus, tuna, salmon, shrimp, egg, rolls, even roast beef with horse radish atop sticky rice, meatballs, squid, eel. Isla probably ate her weight in raw fish. And chocolate cake, and juice. Our total bill was under the yen equivalent of $25.