WHAT'S A PICTURE WORTH?

The other day, me and my friend Michelle went to SM Mall, the larger mall I wrote of in an earlier post. I don't remember if we had a specific reason to be there, but on the list of things to do was eat. So we found this little, very authentic type, Japanese restaurant in the mall interior. We went inside and got our menus and I started going through it, wondering what to get. I saw Ramen on the menu but dared not try it, fearing it might be instant. As I continued to look, Michelle quickly ordered the Sushi, Sashimi and Tempura plate. I thought, "Wow, she knows her Japanese cuisine." I went ahead and ordered some curry, gyoza (deep fried pot stickers) and california rolls.

After the food arrived, and we began eating, I noticed that Michelle hadn't touched her main plate. I finally decided to ask her about it. "I thought it was going to be cooked." She said, clearly very embarrassed. It turns out that she didn't know her Japanese cuisine. She looked at the picture, thought it looked good, and ordered it.



I made a joke that she should tell the waitress, "Take this back in the back and fry it up right!" She laughed, but clearly as the meal wore on she was concerned that the waitress was noticing she hadn't touched her plate. She kept pointing out that the waitress was watching. Personally, I think the waitress was just doing her normal duty to make sure we didn't need anything, but Michelle was self conscious about her plate now. I told her that since we were in a Japanese restaurant here in the RP it was probably a common mistake. Surely she couldn't be the first. I don't know if that helped, but she finally broke the news to the waitress. She used my joke too.

In the end, I guess it was a good thing I didn't dare try the Ramen. The curry I ordered was instant. Luckily for me, Japanese instant curry is awesome. Still, you wouldn't get that at a restaurant in Japan. I mean, the entire thing comes in a silver pack, you boil it, open it and pour it over rice. When I had access to Asian food stores I used to eat it quite a bit.

Later on we contemplated going to see Hancock or Wanted at the fairly large cinema in SM Mall. We chose not too, but it was pretty tempting. I will definitely go see one of these sometime soon. We instead went to a place called Ice Castle, and it's all about ice cream. Here Michelle did it again. They had a sundae called the Macedonia which she saw in the picture and ordered. Luckily this time her choice worked out and it was very good. I had an Oreo Cookie parfet and it was quite amazing. The place has ice cream, sundae's, shakes, parfets, splits, all kinds of toppings, including tropical fruits of the island, and more. I will have to visit again sometime. Maybe I'll try looking at the pictures and trying something new next time.