After eating out on the base for the past month we were getting tired of the same ol' stuff so Russ came home from work yesterday and said let's go off base and find a soba or fried rice restaurant. I texted a friend and asked for recommendations for a good restaurant for either soba or rice and she recommended a place that serves garlic fried rice as well as a few soba shops in the same general area in case the first restaurant was too crowded. She gave us directions and told us approximate prices of each so we were sure we had enough yen with us. We found the restaurant easily and then had to figure out how to get the food ordered. It had a vending machine ordering system. You pick the items you want and put in the yen and it kicks out tickets for each item. You then find your seat and your server takes your tickets, goes in the back and cooks up your order himself and brings it back. It seemed to be a popular place for the Americans because half of the customers were Americans. I guess they know that the garlic rice is a favorite because they had taped a note on the button for the rice in English (well sort of...it said garic instead of garlic...another l and r mix-up but we knew what it meant). There are usually pictures on most of the menus so even when you can't read anything you can usually point to a picture and order without knowing the name.
Our food arrived in a cast iron skillet with no handle and was sizzling. It had egg in the bottom that was still runny and rice on top of it. They provided spoons where you could stir the egg around to finish cooking it in the sizzling skillet and then mix it into the rice. They had a tray of sauces at each table to spice it up as we wished and even provide a picture of the tray with each item written in English. The rice was wonderful and we were stuffed by the time we finished. We were both pleased with the restaurant and found it easy to navigate through the language obstacles. Russ said he wouldn't mind making it a monthly stop for a dinner out. We hope to try out the soba restaurants that were recommended on our next venture off base for food.
After a nice relaxing dinner, we decided to leave our car where it was parked and walk along the sea wall for awhile. It was a wonderful ending to the evening to enjoy the sounds of the waves as we walked and talked. We walked to the American Village area and then turned around and walked back.(maybe a little over a mile walk) We both noted that we'd like walk the sea wall again in the daytime so we can enjoy the view even more. I'm sure it would be a nice area to watch the sunset as well.
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| The Sauce Choices |
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The English Guide to the Sauces
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