第783期:Japanese Restaurant

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Alex: So, you know how we were talking about restaurants? What's your favorite restaurant?

Danny: I guess my favorite restaurant is going to be this one an in the small town near where I live on the coast. It's called Kotora, and it's an udon restaurant.

Alex: Udon. What's udon?

Danny: Udon is a kind of thick flour noodle. And the udon itself is noodles in a soup, so it's noodle soup with a really delicious broth. I think maybe they make it out of fish and soy sauce and perhaps meat, so you get this really delicious broth with these really great noodles in it.

Alex: I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Danny: Well, that's not even the best part. The best part is you get to pick various toppings for your udon. You can get fried shrimp or fried vegetables, or you can get my favorite which is where they take an egg and crack it over right towards the end of the cooking and just barely cook it in there, and they do that with chicken. They have like chicken and noodles and they crack the egg over it.

Alex: Chicken and egg in the same noodle broth?

Danny: Yeah, in the same bowl.

Alex: That's interesting.

Danny: Yeah, it's like one big happy family.

Alex: Mother and child! So what does the restaurant look like? What's the decor?

Danny: Well, it's this really small restaurant. I think the owners actually live above it in the apartment, so it's this tiny place but like I said, it's in Japan, so it's a very, very traditional and Japanese. You walk in and there's this little hallway of the paper screen doors, and on the left there are a couple of actual sit-down tables but mostly the restaurant has all these raised floors with tatami mats.

Alex: Tatami mats? Now, I've heard of them. What are they?

Danny: Well, a tatami mat is a mat made out of reeds, and they just put them on the floors instead of having maybe a hardwood floor, or carpeting or something like that. It seems to make the floors a little bit softer and cushier.

Alex: So you actually sit on the floor to eat?

Danny: So yeah, you sit on the raised floor on these little mats and you have these really low tables, and you get to sit off in your own room that's been sectioned off by these paper doors.

Alex: It sounds wonderfully Japanese.

Danny: Oh, it is. It's very cute and then if you want you can also sit at the bar and you can watch them make the udon noodles. It's so much fun.

Alex: Sounds very traditional.