Andy And Dive Eat Japan

Yay for being an old man!
People keep wanting to treat me to lovely things for my fiftieth birthday.
First it was Joy and Thom and Jong, then Mikey, and now Andy lines up to spend money on the old man.
I could get used to this!

So anyhoo …
I took this just around the corner from my office on my way to meet Andy earlier this evening.
This is one of the reasons I love working in Westminster.
As office backyards go it is pretty special.
Especially when it goes "bong".

And here's one to bring back memories for our lovely visitors this summer; Mme, MB and Katie all rode the big wheel while they were here.
I sat the camera on the wall at the end of Westminster Bridge and let it do its long exposure thang. Cool clouds, huh?

And here's the Eye yet again. I never tire of looking at it.
Or indeed riding on it.
Who wants to come over and play next year?

Wahey! It's Andy and Dive doing the formal Japanese greeting thing. All stiff bows and politeness.
Yeah, right.
Andy's back here from Tokyo and about to treat me to a wonderful meal at Tajima-Tei, so we'd better head on over to Charing Cross …

Let's start as we mean to go on … with Japanese beer and plum wine.
After an amuse-bouche of pickled tuna and edamame Andy starts with spiced chicken tempura and I have steamed sesame spinach, both of which are sublime.
The batter on the tempura is perfection itself, achieving both light crispiness and that kind of soft fluffiness you just can't get making it at home. The chicken is so sweet and tender and full of flavour. Delicious (of course we piled into one another's dishes, eager to try everything). The spinach and sesame (always a Dive favourite) was incredible.

It's a shame this one's out of focus as it is pure Andy.
The restaurant was empty when we got there on the stroke of six (opening time), but pretty soon it was heaving with groups of Japanese salarymen on their Friday night saké frenzies. We were the only two non-Japanese in the place but we were both speaking Japanese quite happily to the waitresses and a couple of guys on an adjoining table.
I had real trouble with my Japanese when Joy and I tried out Sakura in Norwich, but with Andy being fluent I seemed to find the confidence to speak it amazingly well tonight.
Hey ho.

Our main course was astonishing, in appearance, taste and texture.
This was some of the best Japanese food I have ever eaten (thank goodness Andy was paying). The sashimi tuna melted in my mouth, softer than candy floss. It was an almost religious experience. Perfect sushi and veggie dishes, wonderful prawn tempura and totally glorious seaweeds, washed down with lashings of marvellous miso soup.

A man with happy tastebuds.
Being with Andy, we talked and talked and talked about our three favourite subjects: Japan, Japanese girls and jazz. We're big on the "J" words.

The waitress kindly offered to take our photo so here we are a few short hours ago (I am only just home), enjoying yet another wonderful fiftieth birthday party.
Hoorah for Andy!
I'll miss him when he goes back to Japan but he's not going yet so we've still got a lot of fun planned.
For now, though, I'm off to bed.
Nighty-night!