What Passes for My Foodie Post

There’s a bit of a food meme going on over at the Southwest Oklahoma Blogging Coalition… Jay started it with a post about his favorite restaurants, and Lou piled on. I dropped comments in both places about how it would be well nigh impossible for me to name my favorite restaurants… due mainly to the fact that I’ve been a transient my entire life. After a while all those wonderful restaurants just seem to run together, memory fades, and few (none, actually) notes were taken. I suppose I could have saved all those expense reports from my business travels after the Air Force, but that would only account for perhaps 25% of my lifetime eating-out experiences. And that’s assuming I would have been anal enough to actually save those things. Ha. My record-retention policy is basically “toss it” if something/anything doesn’t meet IRS record retention requirements. And toss-‘em I did…

That said, I did remember The Second Mrs. Pennington saved a few odds and ends from our 1991 trip to Beijing and Tokyo (more about which, here, conveniently labeled for your reading pleasure. But no photos as yet.), which included some memorable restaurants and great good times with three of The Second Mrs. Pennington’s host families from her Rotary Exchange student days. One such event was Christmas Dinner at a wonderful Japanese restaurant that specialized in European cuisine (French and Italian, predominately). I could have sworn TSMP saved the menu from that night, but I can’t find it. The food was outstanding, as I recall, but the company was the best part. Here are a couple of shots from that night… TSMP’s host father is the one in the light suit with the blue tie, and that’s his wife to his left, and his business partner and wife to his right. The blond-of-many-hair-do’s at the end of the table is another Rotary Exchange student who was staying with TSMP’s host family. She was quite taken with herself, and for moderately good reason, too. She is most definitely a “looker,” but she had yet to learn that looks aren’t everything…

The third picture in this series (TSMP and I) was taken towards the end of the evening and you might be able to tell I was feeling little or no pain, Gentle Reader. This is the result of LOTS of wine with our meal, and lots of beer before and after. A great good time was had by ALL… not the least YrHmblScrb. Note that TSMP doesn’t appear the worse for wear… she had an image to uphold.

These next two pics were taken at a small restaurant near Mount Fuji, in some name-unrecalled small town...which is better described as a village. That’s TSMP and her host father at our table, where we cooked our shabu-shabu. The restaurant we ate in was supposedly famous throughout Japan for both it’s ambience and the quality of the food…which the Japanese can be fanatics about. If you chased the link, you’ll note shabu-shabu is a traditional Japanese winter dish, and it was most certainly winter outside…as you can see from the way we’re dressed. While the day might have been cold, the company certainly wasn’t…and the food was delicious!

The next picture is TSMP and I in a Tokyo sushi bar. We were living in Deetroit at the time, and while Detroit has some very good sushi restaurants, there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing. TSMP and I indulged our passion for sushi at numerable sushi bars during our brief stop-over in Tokyo on the way home. This is but one…

The final three pics illustrate that airline food wasn’t all that bad, once upon a time. This is the menu one received in Northwest Airlines business class back in December of 1991. And the food tasted every bit as good as it reads on the menu. I haven’t flown biz-class in quite some time, but I’d hazard a guess that corners have been cut there, as well as in cattle-car class.

But the best thing about traveling in Biz-Class, back in the day? Free drinks. Up to the point they cut you off, that is. While I never had that particular experience, being the mellow sort of drunk I am, suffice to say I could have been poured off the plane when we reached our destination.

As always...click the pics for the larger versions.