Localized Chinese Food

Most of you probably know that when you eat out at an ethnic restaurant, what you're getting is not usually very "genuine." Taco Bell is not really Mexican food, Panda Express is not really Chinese food, and so on. It's more like those films that claim to be "based on a true story." Of course, this same thing happens in other countries too, which brings me to one of a handful of photos I managed to get in Japan after the Camera Incident. This is--believe it or not--a Chinese restaurant. Indeed, several of the items on my tray kind of resemble things you might find in Chinese cuisine, but the style is so Japanese that the Chinese food almost feels out of place.

The wooden bowl on the left has steamed rice, and the bowls on the upper left and upper right are the "main entreés." The first one is shrimp in some kind of sauce, the second one is sweet and sour pork. In true Japanese style, they are both very small portions, but they make up for this by giving you a million kinds of everything. The center bowl is half an egg roll with several kinds of decorative garnish and some kind of sweet, deep-fried sesame dumpling thing. Yes, they only give you half an egg roll, diagonally cut in artistic fashion. The bottom two bowls have a half dozen varieties of pickled vegetables, and the lower-right one is egg-drop soup, positioned exactly where the miso soup usually goes.

The most intriguing thing was that cup in the middle that looks like an egg. No, it's not an egg. It's homemade sweet almond tofu, and it's a good dessert. Tofu doesn't taste like much, to be sure, but it has a good texture for pudding, and the homemade style tofu is softer and wetter than most.

This restaurant was really good, by the way. If for some reason you ever find yourself in the Granvia hotel next to Hiroshima-eki, feel free to drop by the Chinese place on the second floor. It's good stuff. This is the place that got me thinking "I wonder if you could serve American food in kaiseki style?" That is, a little bit of roast beef on one plate, a little bit of mashed potato, a little bit of corn ... just for the heck of it. Seems like a ton of work, though.

In more contemporary news, I helped my sister and her husband move to Logan today. The picture here is of their living room before any unpacking. You'll note that Yoda (back left) is still around and doing fine after multiple moves. Logan is a 5 hour round trip from Provo, which meant that the drive was more painful than the actual work. We packed five adults into a Prius (note to self: never do this), and a few neighbors from the new ward showed up to help, so the loading and unloading was done in short order.

In related news, my sister had her second child on Thursday, a cute baby girl. The two-year old big brother is taking the news well so far, although I imagine he hasn't yet realized that parental attention is a precious commodity, and the younger siblings are going to steal it away. The new baby has continued the fine family tradition of being born with a full head of hair, which we're fairly sure is unusual but makes for cute babies.