i can't quit writing about food...

on wednesday night liz and i mounted our trusty iron horses [read- bicycles] and headed down joetsu odori, the main vein that runs through town, looking for some chow. it’s not a way we normally ride which makes for good exploring. we stopped at honey bear restaurant, odd menu. dishes comprised of 5 or six tiny portions of mix match things. a little pasta with red sauce, chunk of hamburger, one fried piece of chicken, shredded cabbage salad, unidentifiable brown lump and corn. we decided to ride on… we came to a restaurant with a red lantern out front, the symbol for an izakaya, which is a bar food kinda place. as we looked over the menu we spotted a yakiniku shop across the way. at these restaurants you grill your own food at your table. this was a more commercial, chain type spot than the hole-in-the-wall shops we’d eaten this at before. they brought out an iron bucket with smoldering coals and dropped it in the recess in the center of the table. i ordered a large beer [which turned out to be about a half gallon] while we looked over the menu. it read like a biology class lab report complete with pictures. there was a seafood section, a beef section, vegetable, pork, so on. we went with the safe stuff; pork tenderloin, choice beef loin, scallops wrapped in bacon. although some of the pictures were tantalizing [honestly] we skipped the hormones, glands, tongues, stomachs, etc. a couple of guys at the table beside us didn’t however and i was mesmerized watching their plates of raw parts be delivered. they were more than happy to explain to us, through charades, what everything was. the food was killer. there is a tray of spices and pastes at the table that you can slather on before cooking and then there’s a traditional brown sauce that you dredge the pieces in before eating them with rice. definitely worth a repeat visit.