7th February 2007
It appears that a ritual with this school is that the mums regularly organise girls' nights out. How lovely!
I haven't been out much these days. Well, by "these days" I mean about 5 years. Since moving to Northampton and having a child, I've become rather a hermit due to circumstances such as nowhere to go, nobody to go with, and no babysitter. It looks like life is finally about to change: I love being back in a city!
So, this night-out has been planned. I'm going. Tim is staying at home with Rhiannon who is most put out that Mummy is actually going somewhere without her...
The restaurant has been booked for around 20 ladies and directions given, but apparently "it's quite hard to find unless you can read Japanese". Interesting.
But all was well. A couple of ladies I recognised were standing outside the building to direct lost gaijin.
The interior of the Toriyoshi Restaurant was exceptionally sophisticated yet somehow traditional. I was escorted through to the reserved room where most people were already seated. I was looking forward to chatting properly with some of the other mothers from Rhiannon's class. But something was amiss...
The long table was occupied mostly at one end only, at the other, empty end sat M who immediately collared me to sit with her. I couldn't refuse; besides, her true personality hadn't revealed itself to me by this stage. But I should have noticed the alignment of people, i.e. everyone else was sitting away from her... and I was effectively barred from chatting to anyone else.
However, food and drink was soon served so I metaphorically shrugged and tucked in. This was my very first taste of Japanese food! I'm embarrassed to admit that even though we've been here over two months, it's true.
The set menu had been pre-booked and the food just kept on coming and coming. Just about coping with my chopsticks, I tasted my first sashimi – and found it to be absolutely delicious, and drank various different types of sake. M told me all sorts of in-depth information about the different types of sake, but unfortunately I cannot remember a word of it.
I also had something called silken tofu, which was not delicious. I didn't like it, the taste wasn't pleasant and the texture was repulsive to me, which was just as well as I couldn't pick it up with chopsticks at all: it has the consistency of soft blancmange.
The only time the other ladies took notice of M was when a shabu-shabu arrived. Maria is apparently an expert on all things Japanese so she cooked it for us. It's basically a pot of boiling liquid on top of a burner where you cook your own food, a mix of meat, vegetables, tofu and other items. The mushrooms were more like the kind of fungi found growing on rotten trees in the UK, but tasted fine.
Then a big bowl of something odd arrived. At first glance it looked like chips, but on closer inspection was something covered in batter. It looked appetising so I grabbed some but when I bit into one I couldn't believe what I was eating! It was deep-fried tendons!! Yes, the triangular pieces of gristle from a chicken. However, the batter tasted scrumptious, so I just ate that and left the rest.
Meanwhile the sake had been substituted for champagne and even though I didn't get to know any of the other ladies it was a very good night. From what I remember...!
