Dinner with the in-laws

The 23rd was a national holiday in Japan for the Emperor’s Birthday. It was also coming up on Christmas, so we got together with the in-laws for dinner. We usually get together once a week for a weekly dinner, so this isn’t an unusual occurrence, but for the occasion R. and I drove out over the weekend and bought a turkey. You don’t see those too often in Japan so we had to go out to Kinokunia to buy one. Because of the New Year’s holiday R’s little sister also came up and brought her daughter Yuzuna, who is super cute at a bit over 1 year old.

R. spent the day at her grandmother’s working on the turkey stuffing and other dishes. By the time I showed up, the table was set and we were ready for dinner. We started things out with some champagne and then dug into the turkey. The turkey, named Nanami-chan by R., was very juicy and delicious. Maybe I just thought so because I went to a lot of trouble to drive out and get it, but still. I brought along some brownies, and R’s sister made a nice cake.

I made a joke about this being a “Traditional Imperial Birthday Dinner”, but the only response I got was “oh, that’s right today is the Emperor’s birthday”, so maybe that isn’t a holiday that people are all that worked up about.

We took home some of the leftover turkey, but haven’t had a chance to work on it yet. It was nice spending time with the family, but I wish I could see my family back in the US as well. It is a little tough though when they are a 12+ hour flight away. I’ve been making do with email and phone calls though. I had been told that Christmas in Japan is usually a holiday for couples, and not so much the big family extravaganza that we have in the states, so it was nice to spend time with everyone here. New Year’s is coming up fast, and that really is the all-family all-the-time holiday so I’m sure I’ll get plenty of family time in the next week.

Xmas Eve Dinner at Coucagno

On Christmas Eve R. and I headed out to Coucagno, a nice French Restaurant in the Cerulean Tower for dinner. Last year we went to the New York Grill in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shinjuku for a very, very nice dinner. Since we have done the same thing for a second year in a row, I think now we have started a family tradition. I have to start thinking of where to go next year. I need to find a nice restaurant up high in a tower with a nice view for next year. Figuring the expansion rate of Tokyo and how often they build new skyscrapers, I don’t think we’ll run out of candidates for a long time.

In this case, we were up on the 39th floor of the Cerulean tower and had a great view of Shibuya. The dinner started with a nice appetizer, Regina Caviar, Sea Urchin Mousse, and Sea Bream Tartar. The mousse was a bit strange, but it was a good appetizer. The first course was a Foie Gras course shaped like a Christmas tree. The toasted bread was great, but the Foie Gras was a bit strong. I’ve had it a few times before, and generally thought that the flavor is a bit strong for the cost. An acquired taste I guess. I still happily ate the dish up: it might not be something that I would make at home, but I’m happy to eat it when it is done well at a nice restaurant.

The second course was interesting on a linguistic note. It was a lobster and shrimp dish, but when I was talking with the waiter, he called them both 海老, Shrimp. I’m a big fan of delicious foods, and lobster hits that category for me. I was a bit surprised to hear them both called shrimp, because as far as I know big things with claws aren’t called shrimp in English. I could very well be wrong though. I would have thought that they were both crustaceans, but maybe in Japanese shrimp is that larger category. Anyway, no matter what you call it, the lobster was totally delicious. The shrimp was great too. I could have used more of both.

The third course was a nice steak course. The steak was very small, very tender, and delicious. Compared to the dinner last year, this one had smaller portions and that actually worked out very well: last year I felt like I was going to explode. This year I felt a lot better, and much less explodey. The steak was really tender and just excellent. The potatoes of various types were really great too: I definitely could have used more of those. I’m a big fan of mashed potatoes though.

There was a small dessert which was some sort of orange sherbert or something, and then a nice cake. The cake was also great, and followed by coffee, which included three types of things that were too sweet for their own good. They would have been better if they were chocolatey sweet, but they were all fruity sweet.

A day or two before Christmas Eve, Mibe Atsushi, R’s friend who makes jewlery, finished the rings that we commissioned and brought them to us. I would link to Mibe’s website, but he doesn’t have one yet. I’m supposed to look into that and get a website built for him. So keep your eyes open for that. I’ll put up a few more pictures of our rings in a bit, but there is one shot in this set with R. and I wearing our rings.

Hitler Clause?

Finally, there was a strange ice scultpture that was trying to get people into the Christmas Spirit, but looking at it just made me think of the Hitler salute thing. It was really strange. I’m not really sure what they were thinking. But it creeps me out. So of course I took a few pictures.