5 Countries in 4 Days...3 Meals in 2 Hours

I think that this title is an accurate summary of the final days of our trip through Asia. We began Friday in Laos. On Saturday, we traveled to Vietnam by way of Cambodia. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do anything other than sit at the airport and wait for the transit, but I'm counting it for the purposes of this post. On Sunday night we flew to Japan, spent Monday in Japan (quality 10-hour layover there), and then arrived in America on Monday night.

Just what did we do with a 10-hour layover in Japan, you ask? We ate, that's what. We ate and ate and ate. And it was delicious.

First off, we checked with the Airport tourist office and grabbed a breakfast of several Japanese delicacies. Correction: Liz grabbed a selection of Japanese delicacies for us to share for breakfast, since she knows Japanese food. Then, we hit up the town of Narita (where the airport is) because Tokyo was too far away.

Narita is kind of a small town, not much to see other than a sizeable temple complex, but it does have restaurants out the wazoo. So, when we had finished with the temple complex at 11:00, we decided that it was time for lunch. Or as it turned out, one of many lunches.

First up, miso soup and sushi/sashimi. We decided to go for something light to start off with, because we wanted to keep eating for as long as we could. We walked into the first sushi restaurant we found and ordered one of the set sushi meals that they offered, plus two bowls of miso soup, because miso is delicious. And because we were cold because it was raining in Narita that day, but that's beside the point.

The sushi was masterfully made. They mixed a small amount of wasabi directly into the rice itself...just enough to add flavor, but not so much that it cleared out your sinuses and made you feel like your head was going to explode. Our plate had an assortment: regular tuna sushi, tuna sashimi, whitefish, crab, herring roe, scallop, and sea urchin. I don't normally eat sashimi when I eat sushi in America because I'm still pretty new to the whole consuming-raw-fish idea. However, thanks to this meal, I completely understand the appeal. It melts in your mouth. Melts! Regular tuna sashimi is pretty delicious, but I also really liked the whitefish and the herring roe. Sea urchin, however, has a weird crunchy texture that I don't really deisre to feel in my mouth ever again. But other than the sea urchin, Lunch #1 was quite satisfying.

Then, we walked for a bit, checking out the other restaurants in search of Lunch #2. After a while, we settled on this one restaurant directly across from where we ate Lunch #1, mostly because it was the only restaurant we saw that was absolutely filled with Japanese people. It was raining and kind of nasty and there weren't many people in the streets (or in many of the restaurants), but this restaurant was completely full (of locals, no less!), so in we went.

Unagi. Barbecued eel. This restaurant specialized in it, so we ordered one and sat down to wait. Again, I don't really order eel when I eat Japanese in America, unless it's on a dragon roll (which doesn't count, because then it has avocado and special sauce and doesn't really seem like eel), but now I understand. It melts in your mouth! How is it that the Japanese know so much about how to cook foods so that they are perfectly tender and fall to pieces on the tongue? Needless to day, we now know why all the locals were frequenting that specific restaurant, and we also know why they only serve one dish.

After this, we were feeling a little full, but it was only a little after twelve, and we didn't have to be back at the airport for a few more hours. Plus, we really wanted to sample more than two dishes. So, we walked a ways more and decided to eat tempura. Bad choice. Good tempura, but bad idea to eat fried food when we were already so full. The tempura itself was fantastic: veggies, fish and shrimp, all battered and fried to perfecton, with interesting seasoning and sauce to dip them in. But even though we split this meal (and the ones preceding it), we could barely finish the last bite. Fried foods are just a little too filling, especially when you're on your third lunch for the day.

So then we returned to the airport, stuffed and satisfied. I had accomplished everything that I had wanted to do in Japan during this day...eat delicious seafood. And it was delightful.