I read Andy Greenwald’s food diary and it reminded me that 1.) I don’t write as well as he does but 2.) I can try to eat as well as he does. (I’d love to capture a night out as well as he writes about attending a wedding and the aftermath.)
I think you’re supposed to take notes. Which I didn’t do. But I did take pictures. So I’ll have to just go off those when my memory fails me. Which is right about now.
The first meal we had was at a yakitori place a couple blocks from our hotel. Wait, I’ll get back to that. I think the first thing really was the airplane food.
The thing about airplane food
Japan Airlines served food three times on the flight. A 14 hour flight is longer than it sounds. I mean, I did NY to JFK flight a week before and that’s six hours and that already feels long. Once you hit six hours and see that there’s still a full day of work worth of time you start realizing just how long the flight is. Then you think of how long a full day of work is and that even with work to do there’s still time to stare at the clock.
But this is about food. They start with full lunch service. I picked the pork katsu curry. Which I mean sort of says it all. It’s delicious. And it’s on a plane. Right now I’m fine not knowing the adjectives to describe fancier food. This isn’t that. [I don’t know that something breaded and deep fried can ever deserve all the adjectives that I don’t have knowledge of.] Basically, its pork katsu curry on a plane. If you’ve had the two separately, you can imagine them together.
I’ve fully enjoyed housing three bags of popcorners on domestic flights. So you know this was better. And you know the basic palette I possess.
The real enjoyment is in the bento setup. In three other boxes, there’s a potato salad with smoked salmon, mixed fruit, and tofu with pickled vegetables. And a salad. Then they come around with tiny cups of Haagen Dazs.
That set the bar high. Then they teleported me in from 3rd grade to put together a ham sandwich for the second meal.
After watching Concussion, various episodes of No Reservations and other worse travel shows, sleeping, reading a book about writing, writing a little bit, and watching half of The Martian, breakfast came. Shrimp congee, yogurt, crackers, and fruit.
Now for a bait and switch. If you came to read about yakitori, this post is getting too long so I’m separating it into its own post. I’ll update this link when that’s written.