Imagery
Tokyo, 2006
After leaving the bakery we headed toward Shinjuku, where we wandered around for a while trying to figure out where to eat dinner. We found this tempura place that looked pretty good, and despite the fact that the menu was a bit difficult to figure out, we managed to order a selection of tempura with rice. Pictured here is the first of many rounds of batter-fried food. It was all very good, but if I had to do it over again I would have ordered less—that is, if we could have figured out how to order less. Apparently most people ordered a la carte, but we didn’t know what was what and just went with a set menu.
I suppose I should mention here that I had forgotten how tasty Japanese rice is. I’ve heard that the Japanese are very picky about their rice and bemoan the lack of Japanese rice while traveling, but now I understand why. Can there really be that much of a difference between Japanese and Korean rice? Yes, yes there can. This may get me lynched, but like ramen/ramyeon, I’ll take Japanese rice over Korean rice any day.