Yet another Friday night dinner
For dinner tonight, we found ourselves at a little Japanese cafe, Sapporo, located at 186 Rutland Avenue in Carlisle. Jac ordered the Bento Box (AU$14.50).
In the Bento Box were (from top left, moving clockwise): a potato cake, lovely and soft on the inside and coated with crispy crumbs on the outside; teriyaki chicken, served on rice; selected sashimi L-R tuna, octopus, salmon; tempura prawn and vegetables (pumpkin, sweet potato, eggplant, zucchini), pictured with pickled ginger. The Bento Box came with two bowls of sauce dipping sauce (not pictured).
Jac enjoyed being able to have a bit of everything but wasn’t able to eat it all, and so I happily helped her eat one half of the potato cake, two pieces of tempura vegetables and some of her rice. I didn’t touch the sashimi though – I really don’t like it at all. For my meal I ordered a small teriyaki chicken (AU$6.50), which came with salad and a bowl of rice.
The teriyaki chicken was served on a bed of mung bean sprouts – yuuuum, I love bean sprouts. The chicken was tender and beautifully flavoured. Next time I will order a large (AU$8.50). And there will be a next time, as we’ll definitely be returning. The teriyaki sauce was positively drinkable, as good teriyaki sauces are.
We also ordered agedashi tofu (deep fried beancurd with sweet soy sauce) to share. When Jac was ordering it, I had the distinct impression that the lady taking our order was having trouble understanding what Jac was saying. My suspicions proved correct, as she brought out a bowl of agedashi nasu instead, which is deep fried eggplant with sweet soy sauce. We didn’t really mind, as the price was the same (AU$2.50), and we both love egg plant. The egg plant had minced ginger on top, which added an extra kick. Deep fried stuff just tastes so good. Later on, thinking about it, I think I know what the problem was – the lady was confused because Jac ordered “beancurd”, rather than “tofu”. This is kind of silly, as the menu has both “beancurd” and “tofu”, but the lady kept repeating “been-cud?” when Jac was ordering.
The exchange went something like this:
Jac: We would like the agedashi beancurd please.
Lady: Been-cud?
Jac: Yes, beancurd.
Lady: Yes… been-cud?
Jac: That’s right, the beancurd.
Lady: Yes, been-cud…been-cud (scribbles something down on pad of paper).
I know she really didn’t understand what Jac was asking for because when we paid we looked at the bill, which said “Agedashi nasu”. Heh. But we’ll be back!
Next time we’ll say “tofu” and I reckon we’ll get the tofu.
Everything was really delicious, and I was perfectly happy having eaten this very tasty dinner, but Jac’s been craving Baskin Robbins ice cream all week (I know this because this week somehow, Baskin Robbins has crept into conversation a number of times for no apparent reason), so, we took a little detour on our journey home to satisfy her craving. Post coming up next.