Teppanyaki and More: Beyond Sushi #3

Trying to look beyond the sushi on Harima's menu

So Mr. Small won his first inter-school quiz contest on Thursday – and requested a celebratory dinner for Saturday evening. Now do my kids want to eat Happy Meals at Mickey D’s? Of course not (I’d disown them if they did). KFC? Nah. Erroneously assuming that his parents stash piles of money under the mattress, he wondered whether we could fly back to Bangkok to eat some of the delicious street food we’d sampled there.

The Divine Delights of Kobe Beef: Beyond Sushi #2

I recently had an out of body experience. It was called Kobe beef. In a nondescript yakiniku restaurant in a nondescript mall in Bangkok’s little Tokyo area, I ascended the proverbial stairway to heaven, and it’s an experience I’m keen to repeat.

Miraku restaurant in Thaniya Plaza

First, context. We’d been wandering around this specialty golfing mall called Thaniya Plaza – yes, such things exist – looking at golf clubs, golf balls, putting mats, golf attire, and mostly useless golf widgets (for example – three varieties of exploding golf ball that will allegedly cause your golfing partners to roar with laughter, or more likely, rage) and we were starving. The kids and I parked ourselves on a bench outside a restaurant with a Japanese-sounding name and waited for our avid golfer to declare his shopping spree complete. On his return, we ignored his plaintive pleas to eat outside on the street (not Thai food again!) and insisted that a sushi binge was in order.

Beyond Sushi #1: Okonomiyaki

Trying to ignore the sushi at Harima

As a sushi lover, I find it very hard to order anything but at a Japanese restaurant. Okay, maybe a platter of sashimi. Or two. But Japanese cuisine has so much more to offer and I resolve to push myself to new frontiers. Step one: Okonomiyaki.