Flashes of Panic

I’ve done better for eating local food in two meals here than I did in three days in Fukuoka.

Last night I walked out from my hotel back to Festival Gate and found a restaurant doing (I think) sukiyaki. I didn’t know what it was called when I walked in; I went back to my guidebook to sort it out. Sukiyaki might be translated as “breaded, fried stuff on a stick.” I had assumed it was all fish, looking at the pictures, but as I went along I discovered onions, chicken, beef, and a hard-boiled egg. The dinner also included a small salad, soup, and a bowl of rice, plus iced green tea. Fortunately for me, the menu had pictures, so I could point and nod. It was pretty good, but the breading kept the sukiyaki themselves quite hot and I burned the roof of my mouth on the onion.

This afternoon, leaving the morning session, I stopped at a place near the stadium. I believe it was called “Yoshinori” or something like that. I still don’t know what I ate; I sat at the counter and followed my M.O. of pointing at the menu and nodding. I gather it involved pork; there were onions and perhaps some noodles, and rice underneath. Cold green tea in a cup which was regularly refilled. It was very good, and I’ll probably go back, but I have no idea what it is.

If you aren’t handy with chopsticks here, you’re starving. That’s all you get for dinnerware; there’s no more to work with. I won’t be starving here, contrary to my earlier fears, or at least if I do, it will be lack of time rather than lack of food.

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