Kobe Miscellany

 The food in China is very good, but it was a nice break to be in Japan to enjoy something different.  From what I can tell, all of the Asian countries are passionate about their food.  Also, from what I can tell, the American versions of Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and other Asian foods bear little resemblance to the authentic, home-country cooking.

Shabu-shabu is the Japanese version of a "hot pot".  In Suzhou, we've had the Chinese and Korean versions.   In all variations, you have a table top burner upon which boils some broth in which you cook vegetables and thinly-sliced strips of meat.  In Kobe, we enjoyed a true Japanese shabu-shabu that included some Kobe beef and some seafood.  All the ingredients were of highest quality, as you would expect in Japan.  It was a delicious feast.

The photo at top shows us dining in a little shabu-shabu place that is tucked in the basement of an office building.   I would never have found the place on my own.  But Moriyama-san, the lady in the left-rear of the top photo, claims it as one of her favorites. The others in the photo are colleagues - Laurence Degan at right-front and Dana McKinney to the left.  Theresa, of course, is in the back center.

 In Kobe, we got a chance to eat many of the dishes Theresa remembers from her childhood years in Japan. Of course, there was a lot of sushi and sashimi. Also, almost every day Theresa got a tonkatsu for lunch.  Tonkatsu is actually a Western import...the Japanese version of German schnitzel.  It's a breaded pork cutlet, pounded to about 1/4 inch thickness and fried.  It's served with a special sauce and rice and all the other things you see in the photo above.

  The photo above shows another one of her favorites cooking - okonomiyaki - which is best described as an omelet of scrambled eggs, shredded cabbage, and whatever else the cook wants to throw in.  Osaka, which is not so far from Kobe, is the traditional birthplace of okonomiyaki.  So it wasn't too hard to find a good one.  You slather the thing in mayonnaise or sweet-sauce before eating.  Anything slathered in those sauces would taste good.

Finally, we change the subject away from food.  The photo above shows the "escape hatch" in our hotel room.  It allows you to climb out onto a narrow balcony.  We were 26 floors up...so I hope that the balcony led to a ladder or some other means to safely get down to the ground.  Japan is the only place I've seen such a thing.   I'm not sure if it's provided out of fear of earthquakes or fire.  In any case, it's not sized for the typical American wide-bottom to fit through.