Lunch Tale

Gonpachi's in Ginza, a restaurant serving traditional Japanese food.

Some sort of loud welcome occurs as one is ushered into the restaurant for seating reminiscent of "welcome to Moe's" in the U.S.A.

Kim and I ate here the first evening. We shared lamb on a skewer - very yummy.

I had lunch here on my own later in the week. I ordered bitori, which is a tuna steak. A man came out and asked me "Raw fish you know. You eat?"

I assurred him that I do eat raw fish.

When the tuna steak arrived, it was accompanied by miso soup, seaweed, some sort of cucumber, sticky rice, and something else that was wonderful but unrecognizable. The tuna however was not raw but medium well done. I ate half of it, then attempted to request that the other half be "raw, rare, not so cooked. It is just a little over-cooked."

The waitress appeared to understand, but of course this was the one day I had gone out without my Japanese travel dictionary. When the tuna came back out, it was now well done. I debated but decided that since I never eat tuna cooked that I would try again.

I politely asked to speak to someone who understood English. Finally a young man came over and I explained the situation.

When the tuna arrived rare in the middle and seared on the outside, I ate it.

It was like BUTTER; absolutely delicious and worth all the effort... and guilt feelings.

DOMO ARIGATO!