Eat up

Usually, our Japanese style meals are leisurely, spread out over six or seven courses. People sit and talk in between the rounds of food, taking their time to enjoy the flavors. We experienced the other extreme today.

There is a tradition called "wanko soba" here. At these restaurants, participants sit down on the floor in front of short tables, then waitresses bring out dozens of small bowls with bite size samples of noodles in each. They pour them in your bowl one by one, as you are eating, chirping "Hai dozo" or "Hai mata mata" or Hai don, don." (This all means something like "yes, here you go," "yes, again, again" "yes, more and more." The goal is to rack on the tallest stack of bowls in your party. I made a pathetic attempt, only racking up 24 bowls. Takashi of course was the winner, with 90. Beth won among our group with 60. I just didn't have the drive to make myself sick over a food eating contest.

But it was really fun. The waitresses were so cute. For about two hours afterwards, we just all kept saying "Hai dozo," "hai, don don" copying their high pitched tone. One of the things they say is, "Hai yoshoi," which Erin pointed out laughing that it sounds like "Are you sure?"

Lesson learned: And they say American serving sizes are big.