Eating Japanese

Eating at the Botan restaurant you are served Sukiyaki style food.

Sukiyaki is tender cuts of meat (chicken, beef, horse or fish) cooked at the table with vegetable, tofu and konnyaku noodles in a sweetened soy-sauce broth. As the food cooks you fish out the food and dip it into beaten raw egg.

Botan is a charming historic restaurant in a classic wooden building. There is only one thing on the menu and it is chicken. The food was served in old Japanese style. Our service was excellent with assistance from the matrons in kimonos and the little guy who kept the coals going. We took off our shoes as you enter the premise. Our shoes were put with many other shoes and we wondered if we would be able to find them after the meal.

We were then led upstairs to a large room where fifteen other folks were sitting. We sat on floor pillows and in front of a short table, that where only six inches tall. Our food was cooked on a small charcoal grill with an iron bowl on top of the coals, which was sat next to our short table.

Cooking our food was demonstrated for us, and then we were watched to make sure we understood what to do. We chose not to eat the raw egg. The egg was sat aside and after we had cooked our meal, the egg was added to the remaining juice and cooked. It was delicious.

Desert was served after the main meal. We had three pickled vegetables along with Green tea and oranges.

When we finished eating we walked down stairs to collect our shoes. As we approached the man watching the shoes, he grab our shoes and sat them down in front of us and handed us a shoe-horn.

We walked down the street and found a taxi to take us back to the hotel.

It was a great experience to eat traditional Japanese cosine.