We had not planned to have Japanese.
In fact we had not made any special dinner plans at all.
Sure, there would be something- after all I am not the type to go past a birthday without a celebration however big or small- but what it was we were going to do, where it was we were going to eat etc etc, I didn't know.
Not that I didn't ask.
I did.
Several times, truth be told, but (with everything that was going on) we decided to keep the choices open, and play it by ear when the time came.
And so as it happened that we were in the Bugis area on the evening of the dude's birthday, we did a quick app runaround, and decided on this little Japanese place over at DUO.
Main attraction of the restaurant apparently was the beef, which was the only thing that the dude wanted for a special dinner, so yes, that's what we ordered.
Two dishes, one of which came served to us as little chunks on wooden skewers arranged neatly over a beautifully patterned blue plate a la elegant yakitori, and the other, a thinly sliced filet of sorts laid out invitingly on a little ebony platter.
The meat was (naturally) tender, perfectly grilled with that delicious hint of burnt fat on each cute little chunk, and the flavor of the beef sliding smoothly off the skewer.
The place called for decorum and elegance, and so whilst elsewhere I might have simply grabbed each stick and munched my way through it, here I found myself reaching for the chopsticks to slide each chunk off the skewer, and then picking it up it piece by piece up before savoring the flavors of the grilled beef.
We had fried rice with cute litte pieces of wagyu beef too, and can I tell you that even though it looked like it was just plain typical fried rice, it was in fact really quite good? It wasn't the Chinese wok kind we have at the zichar stall. Here each grain of rice had the roundedness of taste, there was a whole load of egg, and the whole dish felt like it had been delicately prepared over a carefully controlled flame.
In fact we had not made any special dinner plans at all.
Sure, there would be something- after all I am not the type to go past a birthday without a celebration however big or small- but what it was we were going to do, where it was we were going to eat etc etc, I didn't know.
Not that I didn't ask.
I did.
Several times, truth be told, but (with everything that was going on) we decided to keep the choices open, and play it by ear when the time came.
And so as it happened that we were in the Bugis area on the evening of the dude's birthday, we did a quick app runaround, and decided on this little Japanese place over at DUO.
Main attraction of the restaurant apparently was the beef, which was the only thing that the dude wanted for a special dinner, so yes, that's what we ordered.
Two dishes, one of which came served to us as little chunks on wooden skewers arranged neatly over a beautifully patterned blue plate a la elegant yakitori, and the other, a thinly sliced filet of sorts laid out invitingly on a little ebony platter.
The meat was (naturally) tender, perfectly grilled with that delicious hint of burnt fat on each cute little chunk, and the flavor of the beef sliding smoothly off the skewer.
The place called for decorum and elegance, and so whilst elsewhere I might have simply grabbed each stick and munched my way through it, here I found myself reaching for the chopsticks to slide each chunk off the skewer, and then picking it up it piece by piece up before savoring the flavors of the grilled beef.
We had fried rice with cute litte pieces of wagyu beef too, and can I tell you that even though it looked like it was just plain typical fried rice, it was in fact really quite good? It wasn't the Chinese wok kind we have at the zichar stall. Here each grain of rice had the roundedness of taste, there was a whole load of egg, and the whole dish felt like it had been delicately prepared over a carefully controlled flame.
There was one thing I was determined to do this year- get a cake. Because previous years we had done the cake together with dinner when we were at Marche, and the last year we got a block of Walls Vienetta ice cream chocolate flavor, but since this year it was "anything goes", I wanted to do a cake.
Which we did, a day or so later, at Cedele, where the dude made his choice of a chocolate and hazelnut something slice, and having heard lots about kombucha, got ourselves a bottle to share.
Very raspberry, very lemony, in short, very sour.
But very fun. :)