Saturday Night dinner in Chatan

Sadly our first choice restaurant for tonight apparently went out of business. The outside of it boasts pictures of gooey cheese oozing out of meatloaf next to mashed potatoes-- perfect wintry food. We only noticed the restaurant about two weeks ago, but on this night, the place was closed up tight. 

We ended up going to Jet City Gooddiner instead. We've tried their hamburger shack about a block away and love their savory burgers with curry sauce and pineapple. So we figured the more upscale restaurant would be a treat. Overall, our food was good, but not great. Apart from a vegetable hot pot, we shied away from the more "Okinawan" dishes not really feeling adventurous. The result was that we weren't all that thrilled with our food.

The Mexican salad appetizer was fun though. It had seven ingredients all lined up neatly in the bowl and was served with mixing spoons. The server told us to toss, and when we did, we discovered a puffy crunchy fried tortilla buried inside underneath all the greens! I love surprises in my food and Japanese do this trick all the time.  I guess the "Mexican" part of the salad was a zesty spicy dressing...

We also enjoyed the vegetable hot pot in anchovy sauce. It had steamed autumn root vegetables and didn't taste fishy at all. 

The other dishes, a chicken enchilada and bacon and onion pasta were okay, but nothing to write home about.

Sweet potato!

About a month ago, Okinawans celebrated a local food staple with their annual sweet potato festival. S thought it was the strangest idea ever, but I get it.  

One day this week, I stopped at a nearby bakery called "R Anniversary". I picked up this dessert without having any idea what it was. Turned out to be a sweet potato flavored sponge cake filled with cream and more sweet potato. In case you were wondering why there is spaghetti on top, it's frosting and they love it here.

At the same time, another confection caught my eye. It's called "The scent of the woods" and being intrigued, I had to buy it.

Basically, it's a shortbread cookie with a thick layer of nuts on top. This was really yummy- all kinds of nuts including walnuts, pinenuts, almonds, and sesame seeds. Ofcourse, there's always a surprise inside-- in this case, a layer of raspberry jam.

Let the food porn begin!

For my first foodlove blog entry, it makes sense to start with one of my favorite eating experiences in Japan-- the Izakaya! These bar type restaurants feature tapas portioned savory dishes such as sushi, pizza, creative salads and noodles among many other things. Sean and I tried an Izakaya nearby us in Okinawa city. It was jungle themed-- hence the stuffed tigers adorning the tables.  

We tried an array of dishes including a bacon salad, traditional chicken yakitori, fried udon in a skillet, but the real standouts were the bacon wrapped cheese yakitori and the tuna and avocado tower!

Instead of udon in a soup bowl, the noodles are stir-fried and served in a flat ironed skillet. The dish tasted very chinese, like maybe it was made with oyster sauce.

Tuna and avocado tower

This sushi tower was completely unexpected, which is sort of how food goes in Japan. The descriptions in English on the menus are so deceiving in their simplicity and as Americans, maybe we've learned not to expect to much when there's no language adorning the food. I really just thought we'd be getting the typical boring sushi roll. We were sitting at the bar and saw them preparing this. Imagine how thrilled we were to receive it at our table. 

Finally, the heavenly bacon and cheese yakitori. I don't even need to explain it-- the picture says it all! One little surprise about this one was that inside wrapped around the cheese was a Japanese basil leaf. Perfect! 

What's your favorite savory tapas or bar food?