Good morning!
To be honest, I was so tired last night when we got back
from our wonderful dinner, that I basically was able to post the blog I had
written earlier with photos, and then tumble into bed! I will do dinner now, before we leave Naha
and pick up our car and head out on our next adventure.
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| Our bill from McDonalds! |
When I lived here before, one of the only places we ever
went out to eat was a hole-in-the-wall place near Kadena Air Force Base, where
your food was cooked on a grill in front of you – the teppan-style that we now
associate with
Benihana or
Shogun restaurants in the States.
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| Some lovely holiday lighting! |
We would order the kobe-beef, and it was
wonderful.
(Now whether it really was
kobe-beef is anybody’s guess!)
But
truly, as the restaurant was rather off the beaten path, I was/am very doubtful
if I could find it again.
So, I started
looking on TripAdvisor for recommendations.
The highest teppanyaki place I could find was
called
Heki – an all-women outfit
with two branches on Kokusai-Dori street.
The reviews sounded great.
We decided that in view of the fact that it was January and
we haven’t noticed too many tourists, that we would not make reservations, and
headed there around 7 pm. It was very
windy and cold last night; no idea what the temperature was. We took the Monorail only one stop this time,
and followed the road to Kokusai-Dori once again. There were some wonderful Christmas lighting
displays on the street, and many more people than we had seen this morning,
when things were just opening up. I was
a bit worried about finding the place, as we only had the address – and many of
the shops and places had no English identification at all. However, R
spotted it fairly soon, and it looked really lovely! And, while they did have quite a few
customers, there was definitely room for us.
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| Kokusai-Dori at night! |
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| Lots of lights and people! |
So … we were seated at a curved table that could accommodate
12 people with four different grills.
There was another couple already there, at grill number 1. We were behind grill number 3. Lovely, modern setting and spotlessly
clean! The good news was that they do
have a menu in English, and there are really not many choices one has to
make. Basically – what main course (for
the grill) do you want, what do you want to drink, and do you want the
salad/rice and tea with your meat or afterwards?
What we had was basically a 9 or 10 course meal. It was fabulous
and truly unforgettable! (Although now
that I’ve looked at the menu again, there are some parts that I wish I could
forget…)[Sometimes, it is best not to
know. – R] So, to star:.
We had some finely chopped and marinated vegetables; tasted a bit like
kim-chee. Then came the salad: iceberg
lettuce with red pepper and a truly wonderful ginger soy dressing. After that, we met our lovely chef, who
introduced herself and started cooking.
This course was stir-fried vegetables.
We had green and red peppers with enoki mushrooms. At the same time, she added two sizeable
slices of onion to the grill, and had everything sizzling away. We also got a special vegetable dipping
sauce. This was the moment for starting
to grill the Okinawan-style tofu and purple sweet potatoes, both done
separately and presented in slices (the sweet potato—no sauce) and the tofu,
cut into chunks – vegetable sauce. (SO confusing!) About this time, our chef brought out a small
bowl with very, very thinly sliced garlic inside, and proceeded to sautee it in
oil. The slices were all perfectly cut,
and she sautéed them until they were all identical in color; really a beautiful
presentation, and truly tasty, if you’re into garlic, as we are!
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| Inside Heki restaurant |
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| Our starter |
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| Salad |
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| Our chef! |
Okay … we have now arrived at the main course, our Kuroge
Wagyu beef, with two prawns each. (And
let me make a cautionary note here:
Remember to figure out the price BEFORE
you order, or your dinner will be passing through escrow for weeks upon getting
the bill…) We also ordered a half-bottle
of Chilean Castellero del Diablo
chardonnay.
We ordered the beef cooked rare, so with a grill that hot,
it didn’t take but a very short time for us to be served our first round of
beef. (As there were two of us, we had
one steak, and then when we were about finished with that, she cooked our second
and equally wonderful steak!) There was
also a great meat sauce. Oh! I’m forgetting about the prawns! They were HUGE, and they were placed on the
grill and covered with a stainless-steel cover for a few minutes, R says to steam them, which makes them
more tender than if all grilled. These
she sliced into three pieces – including the head, which she said was “Delicious!” R tried his and agreed with her; but that was
something I couldn’t manage. Then, with
two of the shrimp heads that she had reserved, she pressed them literally flat
as pancakes – to make into shrimp “chips”!
R really enjoyed these – once again
I passed.
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| Chef with prawns |
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| Tofu on left, veggies and sweet potato on right |
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| Prawns in one piece |
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| Our incredible marbled beef! |
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| Beef with garlic chips on left |
From this point, we passed on to Goya Chanpuru, which turned
out to be something that looked like slices of a dark green vegetable with bumps
on it, mixed with scrambled egg. (Upon investigation,
it is a bitter type of melon.) This I
tried but UGH; definitely not for
me. But, as R said, at least I tried it.
(R just Googled Goya Chanpuru
and found that it is purported to be the main reason for Okinawan longevity, as
apparently, they are the longest-living people on the planet!)
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| Green Goya with scrambled eggs... |
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| Tea, soup and rice |
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| Dessert |
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| Menu! |
After that, we had our rice and our clear soup with Okinawan
pork innards; don’t ask. And it was followed
by dessert of Blancmange of jasmine tea.
Not my favorite. By this time we
were definitely stuffed, and were able to put the check into escrow and waddle
out on to the street. Back to the
Monorail, and delivered quickly to our hotel!
So! This now brings
us square on postings, and more tonight!
Lots of love,
m
xxx
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