This was the main decorative feature of the restaurant - a fountain with umbrellas and seasonal foliage. I just wanted to take my shoes off and run through it!!Man Yo Tei is a traditional home style Japanese restaurant. So after we took our shoes off, I got all prepared to sit cross legged and our hosts fussed and said to put our legs under the table. My feet fell down.... Anyone who as a visited a "traditional" style Japanese restaurant in the US is about to feel REALLY ripped off and pissed!! The low tables that sit a foot off the floor - in Japan THEY HAVE A PIT IN THE FLOOR FOR YOUR LEGS!! Seriously! I was completely shocked! I actually ate comfortably and didn't have to keep excusing myself to stand up and stretch my 34" long legs! YEAH!! (we went to several restaurants of the next few days with the same feature)
All the food was excellent!! Except - I have to admit - the appetizer had a partially cooked snail with it, which I couldn't handle. It was the only part of the meal I couldn't eat all of. Lovely spiral shelled snail - unfortunately I'm really good at getting the whole snail out of the shell. The top part was throughly cooked - not so much the bottom. It was slimy. It took all the manners I could muster, not to gag. I just didn't touch the 2nd one. Husband managed to eat both of his but had the same reaction I did. I can eat anything but slimy food, I don't like gritty food, but I can eat it. Slimy makes me want to gag.
It was so much fun to try home style, yet traditional Japanese food. It's so different than what they serve here in the states. Here it's all sushi and teriyaki. but we had all sorts of fun stuff. There was this seared chicken (literally only the out side was cooked) that was a snack kind of dish. It came with several things to spice it. You took a piece of chicken, placed the additives on top, rolled it with your chopsticks and ate it. Yummy - I didn't think I would like barely cooked chicken, but it was good. We sampled all sorts of food, most was a blur. We had some sashimi and some different types of pickled foods, rice, some fried potato and meat things, all of it yummy.
Dinner was winding down and several of the Japan team were very, very drunk so started playing with the fresh wasabi that came with the sashimi. They ground a bunch into a small bowl and mixed in a litte bit of soy to make it soupy and drinkable. The bowl started to go around the table. This is me after my first try with the bowl:
It actually wasn't bad!! It was hot, but fresh wasabi tastes soooooo much better than the crappy paste you get with your sushi here in the US. Husband knew better than to try it...Here is Dave after his first try:
Ha Ha!!Dessert was a sampling of different ice creams served on an tray of ice. So guess what we did? We made snow men out of our ice!! I made one that becky got a picture of, but this one belongs to some one else:
We had such a nice evening!! Here's the whole table of us and the JP peeps:
(clockwise from the photographer) Dave, Lindsey, Husband, Me, Becky, Uta, Mike, Fumi, can't remember (sorry) , Nobu, Justin, Eriko, Makoto, and Osamu
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