Tag Archives: steak

8:15

In spite of having hit the hay relatively early, the suimin busoku gathered the night before prevented me from getting up for the breakfast buffet. Obviously I would have had to pay for it, skipping free meals just is not my style.

On the way to work, I noticed a hairdresser called “Loves hair”, a name which my weird mind found slightly disturbing. It would seem to imply that the owner has such a fetish with hair that customers do him a favor by letting him keep their scalps as some kind of macabre trophy. Or claim the hairbrush afterwards and pet it like a cat. I tend to believe that the intention in the name is different, but my vivid imagination will not let this thought out of my head anymore. How would it feel if a practicing proctologist called his establishment… never mind. While sniffing around for ramen, this was also found:

The title of a new hit TV show in Finland?

As promised, I returned to the buffet again that very evening. The discovery that nothing had changed was a source of both joy and frustration. The sasebo steaks were still there, but on the other hand I had to go through the exact same array of condiments to satisfy my hunger for variety. The only innovations were found at the dessert counter, and I have a strained relationship with the thought of eating sweets right after a complete and satisfying meal. I’m not sure if the personnel have began watching my movements yet but if they have, they must have labeled me “the guy who comes in looking ronery and tries to eat us into bankruptcy”.

Ice Cream & Sadness

Wednesday morning made me reiterate my trip to the Peace Memorial Museum, originally made two years prior with a merry group of friends. I remember us being less merry afterwards. The experience is so sinister that it’s difficult to accurately describe, which is probably why I didn’t even attempt the feat after the first visit. There should be a complimentary showing of Tonari no Totoro at the end, to repress people. Repress is the opposite of depress. So it has to be positive. My blog, my logic, my vocabulary.

On that day, 66 years ago.

Quite similar to the profound sadness you feel when seeing Littlefoot’s mother die in The Land Before Time, walking through the Peace Memorial Museum makes you realize you have a soul. And that soul is vulnerable. By the end, merely hearing the date of the bombing sent shivers down my spine. I’m actually shivering as I write. I ended up spending a good couple of hours walking through the museum, zigzagging between excited middle schoolers and cursing at the obvious shortcomings of my N95’s camera. In order not to deviate from the path proper to man, the Aioi Bridge and the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industry Promotion Hall were chosen as the next destination. As always, the Genbaku Dome was an impressive sight.

Unreachable Haikyo

I also discovered one coffee house that was located dangerously close to the Peace Memorial Park. The proximity of Café Ponte to the touristical Holy Land had hardly_any_causative relationship with the inflated prices in the shop. A cup of joe cost ¥450, and Japanese coffee is, in general, almost as bland as Finnish coffee. It made me chuckle. I subsequently trekked back to the hotel for a pit stop and continued on to… the office.

Later that night, in my effort to learn to complain about things, also sometimes called giving feedback, I confronted the steak chef regarding why the steaks were so much less tender on Wednesday than they were on the two previous nights. He apologized and cooked me three rare ones on the spot, out of which two turned out perfect. I like it here.

Syö, juo ja ole iloinen. Huomenna laihdutamme!

-Antti

 

Paradise Awaits

The sunken city of R’lyeh

The shinkansen arrived at Hiroshima station sometime after 11, and having checked the itinerary to the assigned location beforehand I chose to trek the remaining 2 kilometers instead of looking for the right train. With all my luggage, feeling like a heavy weapons guy was unavoidable.

My observations from two years ago were still valid; Hiroshima is a rare Japanese city where one can actually find something similar to espace verts, and in addition, the streets are wide and pleasantly organized. The initial joy I drew from the physical aspects of the city was quickly lost as I realized that the internet at my special outpost was non-functional. One conbini lunch and a lot of cursing later, I managed to get everything connected and was actually able to begin working. Besides the challenging start, the rest of the day at the empty office was dull and uneventful.

Wide Island

After checking in at ANA Crowne Plaza and checking out the gym thereof, I opted to try the casual dining buffet of the hotel. It was very reasonably priced at ¥3000. A well kept secret among westerners with a huge appetite is that the energy & micronutrient / yen ratio is always superior at a tabehoudai or buffet, given that the stomach capacity of the attendee exceeds a certain level. There is a very complicated mathematical formula for choosing the optimal place to eat, but tonight I clearly made the right choice.

Truth be told, since solving the internet issue at the makeshift embassy right after my arrival, I’ve been all smiles. Smiles, that, once again, I have utterly failed to conceal. I was grinning to the elevator mirror on the way to the restaurant before noticing the security camera watching me. Someone at the other end had probably already began suspecting that the Joker was still alive.

There's wild Pokémon in the tall grass!

Quand l’appétit va, tout va!

When in a hotel, do as the rich people do. Eat. And never stop. All things considered, the buffet was sublime. I began with several servings of different salads and cold entrees, after which I quickly discovered a huge bloc of parmesan cheese and a young chef grilling sasebo style steaks in a corner where nobody dared venture. Don’t ask me what a sasebo style steak is, I have no idea. But it was delicious. I didn’t initially believe my luck so I needed to confirm with the chef whether these really were part of the buffet menu. His nonchalant answer allowed all hell to break loose.

Relinquishing all sense of shame I returned to the steak counter 4 times and tried most of the other foods in between these cherished beef moments: hakata gyoza, crab korokke, beef tendon, shrimp sushi, roasted chicken, horse mackerel, mozzarella tomatoes. This is really beginning to resemble the diary of a hedonist, which it is. I felt like going on forever but decided to quit while I was ahead and chose one funny looking piece of green tea spongecake along with a dangerously large espresso to close the deal. My only cause of distress was that I left my phone and only camera in my room on purpose, thinking “I’m just gonna eat, no point to immortalize anything”. How wrong I was. I would label the whole evening as epic if it didn’t involve paying the jar. And tomorrow’s dinner venue calls the kimeta rule function.

-Obélix