On Perpignan

I was in Perpignan, France from Sept 2-7 for Visa pour l'Image, supposedly the biggest annual international photojournalism festival. I heard about it last year from photographer Adam Ferguson; at the time I had no expectation to go any time in the near future. Somehow I ended up in Amsterdam, working for a photo agency. Since the staff of the agency were attending the festival, myself, another intern, and an ex-intern were also invited to join, although on our own travel expense.


Fortunately, the agency had a house rented out where we were invited to stay, which is nice in a town where the hotels are pretty booked out a year in advance for the event. As interns, there wasn't too much we had to do there. I was pretty much there to enjoy it and absorb as much as I could; which was good, since I felt pretty tired and drained going in.

I didn't do much at all there. I checked out some of the photo exhibits, checked out some of the evening screenings, and attended one of the panels. I probably should have attended more of the panels; although they dind't seem that interesting, the debates could have been educational.

In retrospect, I could have done some more. Could have studied the exhibits more, could have networked more. I really wasn't in the mood for the latter, and it's hard to throw yourself out there as an advanced hobbyist when everyone else is either a photographer or an agent or an editor. Plus, there were far more ambitious photographers throwing themselves at editors, networking to sell, whereas I have no work to push or to motivate me to chitchat, although I guess I really could have done the "hi, how are you, you have any kids?" kinda smalltalk to at least get to know some people and get my foot in the door.

In the evenings there were photography screenings projected on a huge widescreen. The image was created by six projectors. Each evening would start with a slideshow of the news stories of 2007, broken down into a few months for each evening. After that, various photographers and their stories would be featured.

One thing really struck me about the nightly "news" - for a festival that celebrates photojournalism, a profession that idealizes "real news" over "censorship" or simply news pushed by commercial media outlets, there seemed to be a certain filter applied. There was a strong presence of African stories and very little North American, or developed world coverage. Obituaries presented were mostly of musicians, ones that I've never heard of and were probably mostly of interest to people in their 50s or 60s. Few were what I'd consider world news.

The screening on Friday night was focused on the 20th anniversary of the festival. At the end, the director of the festival, Jean-Francois Leroy, himself was feted and presented a gift of prints from the many photographers who are his friends and have benefitted from the festival.

Which brings me to the one thing that I didn't really like about the festival - which, should be taken as an opinion more than a criticism: the professional week has a certain cult of personality to it. There are important people, who all know each other. The festival is the time for them to see each other and catch up with each other. If you're in the clique, you get to hang out and drink with your friends. If not, you're a nobody, left scrounging around the Cafe de la Poste in the evenings in search of other nobodies who are trying to make it as photographers. That's not to say that there aren't friendly photographers, but as a generalization, that's the way it goes. I guess it's the same if you go anywhere where people already know each other and connections are already firm.

One place I lucked out on was to have a front row seat to watch photographer, Philip Blenkinsop, receive the Visa d'Or, one of the three top prizes given at the festival. As an oddity in the history of the festival, the final night's screening and closing party were cancelled due to rain/security, instead Jean-Francois found Philip as he was having dinner and dragged him out onto the street to present him with the award.


I was a little disappointed at the closing party being cancelled - it was famous for being a good time. I did, however, get to see the tiny closing ceremony, held for the benefit of the organizint staff, which lasted for maybe 20 minutes before everyone returned back to the Cafe de la Poste to hang out until the cafe closed.

So simple but so good

I didn't get this from a recipe, so it's probably not authentic, but it's very simple and makes me feel all deutche:

2 supermarket bratwurst (aka braadworst)
a pack of supermarket saurkraut (aka wijnzuurkool)
an onion
a pepper (I got a yellow one)
a bottle of leffe (brune dubbel)

In a 10 or 12 inch frying pan sautee the onions and peppers on high heat until slightly brown. Move them aside in the pan and sear the bratwurst for about 45 seconds, then turn bratwurst over and sear for another 45 seconds.

Pour in beer until the frothing mess covers half the sausage; cover the pan and reduce heat to a simmer until the liquid boils off. It takes about 8 minutes (ok I just made that up, I didn't watch the clock). Add some more beer, as well as the saurkraut, and simmer until mostly dry. Take out the brats and mix the vegetables together.

I got impatient while waiting for the sausages to cook, so I had some warm crusty bread (they sell parbaked bread here that you can finish off yourself at home) with some pate and brie. Having my own kitchen is bad news. This passage comes to mind:

Phil 3:18-21 For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Baggage #2

My transfer at Lyon was about an hour, after that I grabbed a local train to Montpellier. I had just decided on Montpellier as a destination on Monday morning. I needed to be in Perpignan on Tuesday, so I had thought about taking an overnight train. It was over $100 more for the overnight train than the regular train, if I took the regular train though, I'd have to stay somewhere overnight. I had considered Lyon, Marseilles and Montpellier, and decided on the last one since it was closest to Perignan, meaning I'd have the most flexibility on getting there on Tuesday.

I intentionally didn't look ahead for accomodations. The plan was to lock up my rolling suitcase and explore the city and see what came up. Unfortunately, upon arriving at 10pm, I discovered there were no lockers available in the train station. Wandering around the area near the train station, I found that pretty much all the hotels were full (not sure why, but it was the day before school started so I suspect that was related), and none of them had lockers. In the end I found a Holiday Inn, where the desk clerk agreed to lock up my suitcase in the storage room, provided that I pick it up before 7am when his shift was over.

I've found that one of the parts I hate most in travelling is carrying luggage around. It slows you down and drastically limits how far you can go before you're exhausted. Add to that the clumsiness of carrying it around, worrying about theft, and the fact that it marks you out as a vulnerable tourist.

After having stowed the suitcase, I explored the town by foot a bit before jumping on the tram. The first night in Geneva, I had taken the trams around the city to get a feel of the outlying areas and was planning to do the same. Unfortunately the outbound train I took was the last one. It was about 1am when I got to the end of the line, and there were no returning trams. It took me about 4 hours to walk back to the train station. The trip included a couple of short naps on park bences along the way, and meeting a bunch of guys playing football in the empty square at the center of the city at 4:30am. It got colder than I expected, so I was glad to get back to the station, where I found other travellers sleeping for the night. If I had to have carried the suitcase through the night, it would have been pretty miserable, but as it was, it was only tiring (and my feet hurt after).

The next morning I first took a bus to the sea, took a few photos, and then bussed back wandered around the city a little more, when I ran into two dutch tourists that I happened to see the night before. It was interesting that they were photographers, so I hung around with them as they explored the town. Ultimiately it wasn't the best decision; because of them I missed the train I was planning on taking to Perpignan (which meant a lot more walking when I got there since I then didn't have a ride to the house I was staying at).

The more vocal of the two dutch guys proved to be arrogant, opinionated and ignorant, a combination I find downright unbearable. It's something I pretty much guessed at, but maybe I was too generous in not making early judgements. Maybe this is too harsh, but then maybe the lesson to be learned is to trust my judgement and not waste time with the wrong people who will drag me down.

On an absolutely unrelated note, I gotta learn to sail.

Baggage #1

On Monday I took the train from Geneva, Switzerland, to Montpellier, France, which involved a stop to change trains in Lyon, France. On the train to Lyon, I saw a black woman on a train, carrying her three kids. She looked tall, slender and strong as she tried to manage two toddlers and a baby at once by herself. Initially she didn't find all the seats together and put the two toddlers in one car, and sat in the next car and watched them through a window. I watched first as she efficiently changed three diapers, and then filled three baby bottles from a bottle of juice while holding the baby.

I felt a little bad for her, trying to watch over the three kids. At moments I felt like offering to help, but I always have this sense that unsolicited may be unwelcome, especially with protective mothers and their children. Maybe it's just the way I don't necessarily feel like I need people to offer me assistance most of the time. The daughter, one of the two toddlers, at first seemed quite capable of taking care of her younger brother as they sat together in the other car. Later though, as seats freed up and she came back to sit with her mother, she seemed a little out of it, first slipping on the seat as she was moving across it, and banging her head against the train wall, and again later falling off the seat completely and landing on her butt. I suspect they must have been having a long trip, since her brother was nodding off with a baby bottle in his mouth, occasionally jerking up to hold the bottle, but not sucking anything out of it.

As I got off the train, I felt a little uneasy as everyone rushed off and the woman packed her stuff and got her kids in tow. I hung around to watch, just to make sure she and her kids all got off the train. The mother got off, carrying the baby and her luggage, and looked around the platform for someone as her toddler boy stumbled off the train in a half-awake daze. The clumsy sister also stumbled off the train, and at first stepped in the crack between the train and the platform, and then fell all the way through the crack probably bumping her head and limbs against the train and platform on the way down.

I rushed over as the mom started screaming. Another woman who was just beside the train had gotten on her knees as well, and together we reached down and grabbed the girl and pulled her up, as some men stood in the train's doorway to make sure it didn't close and the train didn't move. The tracks and gravel were only about three feet down below the platform, but it was a fairly big fall I think, when the girl was much shorter than that. We managed to pull her up quickly, and returned her to the distressed mother. A station employee had been summoned and came over and checked the girls head, and a crowd gathered.

I have no idea if the station employee had any medical training, but since the woman seemed to be taken care of by plenty of native french speakers, I just went on my way. Later I saw her two boys leaving with a couple of other people that I had noticed with her on the platform. I guess the woman probably went to take care of her daughter.

I ended up feeling bad for the woman (and considering perhaps that I should have been helping her kids off the train instead of merely watching). At the same time though, it seemed almost inevitable that some sort of accident would happen considering that the woman had her hands full with luggage and two toddlers running around. It seems almost negligent to allow your children to stumble off the train by themselves. She could have put her luggage down off the train first and then helped each kid out, or vice versa. While I may be rather insensitive, it seems almost foolish to even attempt to travel alone with three small children given all the things that could go wrong. I find it difficult enough to travel around alone and keep my eye on my belongings, having three children that move around would be next to impossible. It seems like the type of situation that would require far more careful planning. I understand that perhaps this woman may have had no choice. If that were the case it must be a difficult life to have to carry around all that baggage.

Solitude

A reminder to self. Being alone doesn't mean you're experience the benefits of solitude. You can be alone yet easily to busy and preoccupied to meditate and reflect, to know yourself and evaluate your strengths and failures, to know what you need and what you want, to know where you stand ethically and morally, to know how far you are from God.

On the other hand, time spent with others does not preclude being able to set aside some time, even a moment, between yourself and something great.

Geneva, day 1

There's a big difference between Geneva and Amsterdam. All the expensive looking cars and women really gives a feeling there's a lot more money in this town. Oh, and all the watch stores and private banks as well. But the banks here actually aren't that impressive looking from the outside.

I need an excuse.

I haven't posted up the photos from Budapest two weekends ago. Or the ones from the beach at Zandvoort aan Zee last weekend. How long will it be till I get the pics up from Geneve this weekend, or Perpignan next week?

Chez moi

The problem with getting into a routine is that you get unmotivated. Instead of striving forward and pushing yourself, you get comfortable and lazy. Instead of planning ahead and thinking of a meal for dinner, I just end up buying whatever looks good at the supermarket and combining it with whatever I had in the fridge. Usually I make it work, but I have to admit, while being edible and tasty, it's hardle restaurant quality.

Today's supermarket haul: belgian endives, haricots verts, cooked crawfish.
What was in the fish: sausage that looks like kielbasa (but tastes like spam), arugula, a block of parmesan reggiano.
Sitting on the counter: basil plant.

1. Boil haricots verts for about 3 minutes, then toss in ice water to maintain colour.
2. Peel belgian endive leaves.
3. Chop up belgian endive hearts and spam-sausage. Chop up or grate parmesan. Chiffonade 5 or 6 basil leaves.
4. Sautee chopped up endive hearts and spam-sausage, flavour with salt, pepper, paprika, oregano and thyme in olive oil.
5. Toss cooked crawfish into sautee.
6. When chopped up endive hearts are browned and spam-sausage is crisped, turn off heat.
7. Toss haricots verts, endive leaves, arugula, parmesan and basil in pan, along with a splash of balsamic vinegar.
8. Serve salad with a tall glass of acai and passionfruit juice (preferably generously spiked with export strength Tanqueray).

To be honest, it would have been pretty damn good if it wasn't for the spam-sausage. I should have known better than to keep it around. Maybe if I have visitors, I'll be smart enough to toss out anything spam-flavoured from my fridge (hint hint).

As Usual, Time Flies

I had a constant sense of unease during the first week here, trying to figure out how to get around a new city, not knowing where I'll live, and being unsure of whether my luggage would still be there when I got back from work. The second week was quite the opposite though; it surprised me how quickly I got into a routine. The weekdays on the past week have flown by.

I try to leave the house by 9:30am, it's a 25 minute walk to work to get there by 10. I've been leaving work around 7pm, and by the time I walk home, buy groceries, make dinner, and clean up, the day's pretty much over. I found a climbing gym, so a couple of nights were spent climbing (kinda expensive at 9 euro to boulder for an evening). Wednesday night was home group night from one of the two churches. after a week I hadn't had time to start working on the side project I had wanted to work on at home, and I've barely gotten through processing photos or updating the blog.

So I've been meaning to put up photos of the apartment for a while:







It's pretty roomy 1 bedroom, and fully stocked with IKEA furniture. The kitchen is pretty well stocked with IKEA kitchenware, and has a decent spice rack too. I'm pretty much set for visitors, in case anyone wants to come by.

Things here are definitely more expensive than the US. I'm feeling it but I'm trying not to do the currency conversion in my head. One of the cheapest meals I've found is a "turkish pizza", a round flatbread with some toppings (ie spinach & feta), covered with some sauces and condiments and rolled up. They can be had for as low as 2 euro. A bagel with cream cheese goes for around 3 euro. Falafel sandwiches are usually a little under 4 euro, shwarma sandwiches are usually around 5 euro. These constitue the majority of the cheap fast food. The cheapest sit down meal I've had was a 10 euro quarter chicken with fries and salad.

Drinks and juices tend to be fairly pricey. A 500 ml bottle of pop at a corner store tends to go for about 2 euro, a 350 ml beer around 2.30 euro, a coffee at a cafe around 3 euro, a large fresh orange juice around 4 euro.



I'm hoping to save at least a little by eating in more. Here's a sample of my first grocery trip (click through for prices), and the price of a meal of pasta comes out to about 4 euro. Right now though, I think I'm spending a lot more on snacks than on meals themselves. For example, Kettle Chips are 2 euro for a 150g bag, and a pint of Haagen-Dazs went for 6 euro. The Kettle Chips here are made in the UK, and they're far less crispy and crunchy as the US version. They're also a lot less tasty. I don't think I'll be getting any more.

I've also noticed that they don't seem to have baking soda here, I don't know how they get rid of fridge smells.

Settled In

I have this syndrome that whenever I actually sit down to write a blog, my mind goes blank and I can't think of what to write about.

I could start and write about hanging out in Toronto with friends. I had planned to drop by for a couple of days and not do anything but relax, but I ended up filling up the schedule randomly, meeting up with high school friends I haven't seen in over a decade, and friends who just happened to be visiting from Hong Kong.



Or I could write about going to Jason's wedding and seeing University friends I haven't seen in seven years.



Or I guess I could talk about flying to Amsterdam and looking for an apartment on the day I arrived, and how after looking at 3 rooms, I picked (the wrong) one. The guy renting the place bailed. Staying in the hostel for the first few days really wasn't too bad. The worst part was the fact that I had two suitcases and I constantly had to stuff everything back in them and make sure they were locked up properly every day. If I had fewer belongings, it wouldn't have felt as difficult.



I could write about giving up in frustration and calling up the rental agency I had called while in California, but which I dismissed because of the price. I think maybe it just indicates how spoiled I am in just throwing money at the problem and getting myself an apartment. It's not quite as central a location as I initially wanted, but it's fully furnished, and more than large enough to have visitors, and it's actually within walking distance to work.



Oh that reminds me, the one thing I thought I'd write about was that both churches I checked out on Sunday (after staying up way too late on Saturday) ended up playing the same song to close the service. They must really like this song here.

Blessed be your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where the streams of abundance flow
Blessed be your name

Blessed be your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name

Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say...
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name

Reading.

The test of our work is not the profit gained from it or the status we receive from it but its effects on creation. Are persons impoverished? Is the land diminished? Is society defrauded? Is the world less or more because of my work? We have become so accustomed to evaluating work in terms of productivity that we have little sense of its meaning in terms of creativity. We have for so long asked the questions of efficiency and profit that it does not even occur to us to ask the question of virtue. But Adam Smith is not canonical and Psalm 82 is.

-"Where Your Treasure Is", Eugene Peterson.

I've been doing a bit of reading lately, which I think is a good thing. I finished Peter Enns' "Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament" last month, and I thought it was an excellent book, and much more honest in terms of dealing with problems of Biblical interpretation than I tend to see in most Christian books.

Recently I've been trying to finish Eugene Peterson's book, which I was supposed to have read for my intern class a few years ago. It's one of those less honest books, that reads a lot out of a few lines of scripture. But at the same time, it's really quite encouraging, and I think he makes valid points.

Cheese

Cleaning up my stacks of junk revealed a cheese menu from Gary Danko. From flickr, it looks like the last time I went was back in August 06.

I had forgotten to take a picture of the cheese course. It consisted of:

gorgonzola dolce - italy
epoisses - cow's milk, Burgandy, France
cravanzina - sheep's milk, Langhe, Italy
carre du berry - goat's milk, Loire, France

I keep junk around for way too long.

Charlie Foxtrot

Happy Canada Day!

Last week, as I was walking back to my condo in the dark from the parking lot in the dark after dinner at my aunt's house after dinner, CRRRUNNNCH!!! Since the sprinklers come on in the evening, the snails come out to frolic on the pathways, and it's pretty easy to accidentally step on one in the dark.
Somehow I managed to step on six at once.


On an unrelated note, I've been trying to work my way through all the tea I have stashed away. I've been a vietnamese coffee drip thing with the assam granules, and that seems to work ok, although initially the water drips right through until the tea expands a bit and slows the drip rate. It comes out reasonably strong, and I think I'm a bit overcaffienated this week.



I've been wanting to try out Kappa restaurant ever since I read the SF Chronicle review last year. We had gone looking for it once, but never found it, the little hidden location adding to the mystique.

This time, a little better informed, I found it easily. It's located up above the old Denny's in Japantown (now reopened as "New Danny's", but it looked like it was serving the same swill), beside a Korean karaoke bar. The restaurant consists of a row of bar seating for maybe 8, and a little small room with a tiny table. From the outside, all this hides behind a nondescript black sliding door, with no windows and no sign. The only clue is the japanese style lamp beside the door.

Inside we were welcomed warmly by the hostess. The tiny restaurant is run by an older japanese couple, who have been running the place for 23 years. The man cooks, while the wife serves and prepares desserts in her kimono. Intimate, serene, and homey at the same time, the ambience is probably one of the best reasons to come here.

I was hoping for kaiseki style cuisine, something that's a little harder to find. I've kind of developed a taste for at Toronto's Katsura and have been missing it here. The koryori style served at Kappa was still good, but not quite as splendid. We had the omakase (it's hard to order, the menu is written on the wall in kanji). The items were mostly simple and clean, but not as refined as I was hoping for. There were more deep fried dishes than steamed or soupy. On the one headline platter, there were a number of items that left me wanting much more. The other dishes though, were good, but felt plain. Click on the photos for descriptions.

Overall, the experience was extremely pleasant, although it felt a little more expensive than it was worth (although, one could explain that by the fact that we only saw 7 customers that evening, including us).

Materialism

I know you're not supposed to be able to buy happiness, but pretty new gadgets certainly cheer me up. At least for a little while. Since California's no-cellphone-while-driving law is kicking in July 1, I figured it's about time I got a Bluetooth headset, esp since I went out of my way to get a phone with Bluetooth however many years ago. And it works well for Skype too, double yeah!

I do realize that the fancy box that doubles as a display case means I paid way too much for a headset, but I did read some article a while ago saying that this will actually make me happier.

Time

It's funny that Bob's youngest cousin is the age of the kids that people my age would have.
I don't know if "funny" is the right word.

Callow Wisdom

I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do,
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute?

-MGMT

Lyrics from a song click when they seem to parallel some personal experience or feelings - good music draws out some internal emotion right?

It occurred to me that often, because of this, we may associate with lyrics, to somehow buttress the way we're feeling - "Hey, I'm not the only one who feels this way". Perhaps even stronger, we may look to our society's bards to give us some tidbit of wisdom, to reveal some gnosis to the rest of us unartsy (and less inebriated) commoners.

Maybe this made sense back in the day when we were in high school or college, when we were the primary consumers of pop music, when artists were far ahead to have a few more years of experience to guide us with. But when you get to this side of 24, you realize maybe all these kids writing the music don't really know what they're talking about.

Albeit, I'm still tired of the job in the office and waking up for the 10am commute.

To be honest, I'm totally misrepresenting the song by just quoting half of it, there's a certain irony to the latter half. I'm definitely digging the psychadelic retroness of this band though.

On Food

Over the years, I've realized novelty is one of the things that drives interests more than almost anything else. I tend to lose interest as things get repetitive, and the initial excitement and awe of fine dining has faded a little. I find it rarer and rarer to find a restaurant worth ranting and raving about, and even less inspired to actually blog about it when I do. That's not to say I haven't had any good meals lately. I have (Cyrus was particularly amazing, more interesting than the famed French Laundry), but I find that since I don't blog about it, it just tends to be another experience that fades from memory.

I'm finding that in the past couple of years, I'm prefectly satisfied by the everyday, done well. And more and more I'm finding it's the company that makes the meal, and when that's the focus (rather than the food), I try not to pull out the fat camera in the middle of the conversation. That solid bowl of pho or ramen could be the perfect meal with the right person. It's no 5 hour tasting menu, but something you could do every day for the rest of your life.

Anyways, for the sake of trying to record some of the nicer meals in the past few weeks:

Lucien

A surprisingly standout meal, especially after finding that this was opened by the same people as the thorougly unimpressive YYZ. I had checked out YYZ quite a few years ago, when the Canadian dollar was substantially weaker, and still thought it delivered nothing special for what it cost. Lucien however, executed its fusiony ideas from various cuisines deftly. Asian and mexican/spanish influences were at the forefront, but not obnoxiously so.

The Berkshire pork belly with clams, cuttlefish, kimchee, toasted barley and a slow poached egg was to die for. On paper it sounds almost like a Korean horror movie, a slab of jiggly meat, bright red and spicy and sour, with that hint of rank fermented vegetable and fishy seafood. In practice it was perfect. The pork was slightly sweet and buttery, melting in your mouth like a good Shanghainese pork shoulder. The "kimchee" itself was entirely untraditional. Rich and spicy, with a hint of tang, but with no vinegary taste or odor whatsoever, I could have just chowed down with that on white rice for a week. The egg was perfectly done, the rich orange was soft and gelatinous, but not runny at all.

I only tasted the king crab and scallop, with heirloom carrots, coconut, black bean and toasted corn. Again, although it sounds like something they'd serve at a fancy taqueria, it was definitely raised way beyond.

The roast squab soto with rice noodles, bean sprout sambal, lobster tofu was interesting, but not as outstanding. The portion of squab was small, the breast was decent, but the leg was a perfect morsel, deboned, crispy on the outside, and buttery on the inside. The rice noodles were a little sticky, and the lobster tofu on the salty side. Not quite a perfect implementation, but both were creative enough that I didn't feel like this was asian food done poorly and served with a high price tag.

I've already wrote too much, but Alberta bison striploin with hominy, sarsaprilla, poblano, treviso, queso fresco was very good. Seared on the outside, bright red on the inside, juicy and tasty on the inside, and the grits on the side had rave reviews too. It simply blew away the bison short ribs I had later that week at Celestin.

Overall, the service was attentive, and someone who looked like either a manager or owner (I wasn't too chatty) was around to help out the wait staff and check on diners.

Celestin

I've been meaning to try Celestin, since I saw this article in Toronto Life years ago. Finally got to try it, and although it was good, it wasn't outstanding in any particular way. One complaint is that the meal, which was just some appetizers and mains, and not a tasting menu, still took over two hours. Click on the pictures for a description.

Sankyu

This little izakaya in a random strip mall is one of those things you'd never find if someone didn't bring you there, especially as a tourist. The inside wasn't too fancy. On one side were some stalls with the traditional low tables where you sit on futons, a cabinet was lined with bottle of shochu with namecards on them. There were Japanese men drinking and dining in Japanese. On the other side there were some more normal tables. A couple of harried waitresses rushed around to take orders, specials were on a board, written in Japanese.

We were there for the ramen and the Sapporo draft. The ramen was decent. I think the best in the Bay area compares better, but I had no complaints. The side dishes were pretty good too. Deep fried chicken, stewed pork, hamachi collar, gyoza. I've forgotten the other half the dishes by now. Although none were spectacular "you must try this dishes", they were very good, it's one of those places that you could easily call a regular hang out. And we were there hanging out with the people I'd hang out with forever if I could.