We weren't sure what we wanted to have for lunch at Parkway Parade today.
At first we thought we might go for conveyor belt sushi at Sushi Express.
Afterwards we thought we might consider beef porridge or maybe pasta from Pastamania upstairs.
For a short while we harbored the thought of having Burger King, but then almost immediately we decided it better we have some sort of variety- weekend, everything and all- and so went back downstairs to Ichiban Boshi instead.
There's an order we particularly like whenever we're at Ichiban.
It's an order that I can tell you what it consists of, and why we like it so much, but I can't tell you it's name.
Strange, isn't it?
You can relish in the ice-cold, beautifully arranged salmon sashimi.
You can delight in the crunchy tempura of ebi, okra, eggplant and pumpkin.
You can even scoop with hungry joy all the gravy from the filet of fire-grilled beef to go with your rice.
But, dear heavens, you can't remember its name.
I guess the name of the set doesn't matter as much to me as how it tastes.
Whether it be the nicely grilled beef filet with its tender chew and delicious sauce, whether it be the appetizer of either pickles or the green green seaweed (is it seaweed?), or whether it be the chawanmushi with the gingko nut inside, I like them all.
There's something very heartwarming about this dish that we like, and it has become such that we try to order it whenever we can.
Perhaps it is the chonk of tender beef.
Perhaps it is the gravy in which the beef simmers gently in.
We've never been able to figure out what the gravy is.
But we have established a kind of eating pattern whenever we have this order, in which we first split the portion of rice halfway, my friend then gets the ebi tempura whilst I get the vegetables, and after that we share everything else, including the sashimi, the appetizer and the fruit dessert.
It's a good arrangement that I like.
Still I don't know the name.
And it don't matter.
That doesn't mean I don't know some of the other stuff we order though.
There was an Ichiban JYU which we ordered- a simple, straightforward square bento box of salmon sashimi drizzled with sesame oil served over rice where we always ask for more sesame oil.
And a special order of cold, stringy, chewy, refreshing jellyfish, which, embarrassingly, I also don't know its name....
