Vada’s first “meal,” top 3 all time for me

We went out to eat last night at one of Carmen’s favorite restaurants. I small Teppanyaki place near the hotel. It’s a tiny little place ran by a husband and wife. He cuts up all of the food and then she cooks it. We were the only customers. We had Kobe beef, sliced super thin and then grilled. It was served on slices of bread instead of a plate. The bread soaked up all of the fat and oil and then they grilled the bread in butter and served that as well. Fan-freakin-tastic from start to finish. It’s amazing what quality ingredients can do. It’s near the top of the best meals I’ve ever had. Which, if you’re scoring at home include in no particular order:

• Bem Ermi’s hamburgers in Palau, 2006 (eggs, avacados, and some sort of secret spice that must be derived from fairy dreams and crack cocaine — so very, very good and you immediately want more — so realistically it was probably just MSG.)
• Multi (and I mean multi) course meal at a Michelin rated restaurant in Oss, Netherlands in 2003 or 2004
• Sushi at Edo Sushi in San Diego, 2005
• Skillet pancake breakfast on the Kahiltna Glacier, 2006 after summit day (pancakes 3/4″ thick and the size of the skillet. Easily half a stick of butter. Thousands of calories.) 
• Sushi at some random sushi bar in an alleyway in Paris, 2006 (this meal and restaurant appear to the only redeeming traits of an otherwise worthless trip and country)
• Teppanyaki Tokyo, 2010

At the end of the meal we had sliced apples for desert. Trust me, they were fantastic and I’m not a huge apple guy. The chef took an apple slice and diced it crazy fine and then gave it to Vada. She isn’t exactly eating solid foods yet, but it’s tough to pass that up as a first meal. It took a while to get the hang of it, especially compared to the watery thin rice pudding that she’s had all of twice, but by the end she was lunging for the spoon. This is why we like to travel — especially internationally. I can assure you we would not have had this experience at Applebees. 

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