Sushi gluttony

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I met with my adult group tonight for my welcome enkai meal. They took me to a really nice sushi restaurant for a very traditional Japanese dining experience, sitting in sunken kotatsu seats. The food was (mainly) delicious, but they ordered so much and kept encouraging me to eat more and more, to the point I really thought I was going to pop!

Raw fish is growing on me. I think I still prefer it cooked on the whole, but I'm much more open to the full on raw stuff now than I ever was back in the UK. I wasn't so keen on the raw salmon eggs (they pop in your mouth) and the raw octopus is quite chewy, but raw tuna, salmon, shrimp and steamed conger eel are really tasty. They also got me to try a steamed egg custard dish called Chawanmushi- it comes hot in a little pot and is quite runny. Not really my cup of tea as it was quite wibbly. I also got to sample several puddings, including sweet potato ice-cream (which is a surprisingly good flavour - very subtly sweet) and rice dumplings with sweet beans. All polished off with a glass of plum wine (Umeshu) and several glasses of Oolong Cha.

So I've eaten enough for a family of five and will have to go for a run tomorrow for fear of turning into a human rice dumpling!

It was a lovely evening, although I find the three women don't seem to want to talk much English - they like to gossip in Japanese a lot, but when they are buying me dinner I'm cool with that! Mr Hagiwara is the main person who talks to me in English during the evening. He is such a sweet man and had even looked out some info on local races for me.

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