Okonomiyaki and yamamomo

 This morning I went grocery shopping.  Fuji Grand's grocery opens at 9 am.  I rode over around 9:15 or so, but I wandered around the mall before most of the other shops were open.  I've been thinking about getting a whiteboard to put on the office door so students can let me know if they stopped by when I was gone.  I found this one, but it's a little off.  (Dad joke game on point.)

I met Brooke and Zoe at Sako train station around noon.  They and I sat in separate places for a few minutes before they found me.  In my defense, how can you not sit on a bench held up by tanuki.  (By the way, I'm fairly confident this is where Super Mario Bros. gets their name tanooki for what we call the racoon suit.)

The three of us went to Bubu's Okonomiyaki shop for lunch.  Bubu is the name of the owner.  He loves having foreigners visit and he enjoys talking.  Okonomiyaki is a savory pancake made with shredded cabbage, flour, water, and egg.  Then it's topped with whatever you like.  The translation of "okonomiyaki" is "as you like it."  Here is Bubu's Facebook link.  I encourage you to check it out.  I'm not on Facebook, so I can't say what it is.

Truth be told, Susan brought me to Bubu's on Thursday, but I didn't tell Brooke and Zoe until we met today.  I didn't want them to feel like I would rather go somewhere else, because after lunch on Thursday I plan to visit Bubu's at least once a week.  The food is fantastic.  It's street food.  Today I had takoyaki - octopus in a fried dough.  

 

I didn't tell anyone else this, but while Bubu and I were talking (he's 72 in October) I thought it might be nice to work my way through his menu.  I don't know if Tami ever ate here, but I will make it a highly recommended stop for future exchange faculty.  He will make vegetarian and vegan dishes which are about impossible to find.  Fish is not really considered meat.

After a wonderful lunch, we went for shaved ice at a small tea shop called Wadanoya at the foot of Mt. Bizan.  You can zoom out and to the north is Shikoku University.  I met Naoko (I fixed the spelling. I think that's her name - Brooke, Zoe, or Susan - if you read this please fix me).  She's an older woman who taught English to future English teachers.  I've had more natto and decided I like it.  "You are the first non-Japanese person I've ever met who said he likes natto."  I aim to be me.

The four of us sat next to a window overlooking a small wooded waterfall.  The store has been in the current building for 400 years.  I opted for the yamamomo flavor.  As an American, you're probably thinking "shaved ice is what we get at the fair."  Yeah...no.

I know.  I need to trim my beard and I need to eat more.  Working on the latter.  The former is less important to me.  The mountain of pale pink is the ice.  The dark red is anko (sweet beans).  The white ball is ice cream.  The red ball is a yamamomo fruit.  There are also two small white (so very hard to see) rice paste balls.  In the white dish to the right of the picture is more syrup for the ice.  I also have cold matcha tea.  Before I ate any, Zoe described yamamomo as "subdued raspberry."  It turns out Zoe knows how to play Accidental Band Names without being aware the game exists.  Subdued Raspberries sounds like a folk band who wants to be kind of hip.  But not too hip, you know?  I digress.

Zoe was right.  The flavor of the syrup is a very understated raspberry.  Like it can't decide if it's going to be sweet or sour or slightly bitter.  That variation makes it very good.  I can imagine using it in a vinaigrette.  The fruit itself tastes more like two strawberries - one is almost too ripe and one it just shy of being ripe.  It seems bizarre, but it works.  I'm not sure if the flavor I had was mostly the fruit or a mixture of the fruit and syrup.  I'd love to try one "out of hand," as they say.

Turns out, like sudachi, yamamomo is very difficult to get outside of Shikoku island.  So, I'm sorry Jen.  I will be trying to grow biwa (loquat), sudachi, and now yamamomo when I return.  I hope that any annoyance you feel because these will have to be in pots in the house through the winter will be offset by thinking about Grandma Vannette (mine, not the boys) calling me a little shit for doing something like this.  I think all of us grandkids on my Dad's side lived to have Grandma Vannette say that to us.  Not because it annoyed her, but because she loved us as she was saying it.

As an aside, Jen loves that I enjoy planting whatever I fancy.  She's never directly said this, but I believe she enjoys the fact that part of me stays 5 years old as I watch a seed sprout, the leaves grow, then a tree forms.  It can be frustrating when it comes to finding places to put the pots such that Tesla will not chew all the leaves.  There is no denying that.  I joke about it, but she is very encouraging of my experiments in planting things, and I'm quite grateful for her.

Alright.  One last thing.  I biked to Sako station and parked my bike there.  We did a lot of walking.  It's much easier to walk and talk than it is to ride a bike and talk.  However, here is the bike parking at the train station.

I cannot pick out my bike from this mess in the picture.  I found it when I left for home, of course, but a lot of people ride bikes here.