Japanised Chinese food

On Friday night, we were invited to dinner with some of the younger teachers at my school, organised by one of the teachers to help lift up the spirits of those who recently sat a teachers' qualifications exam and did not pass. (All teachers have to do this exam, and it is really difficult - apparently, out of the 160 teachers who took part in this year's Social Studies and Phys Ed category of the teachers' exam, only 4 passed!) Dinner was at a 'Chinese' restaurant called Kyouchan in Ushitsu (the main town of Noto-cho, where my school is).

I think this was our first time dining at a non-Japanese place since arriving in Japan. The food was... how shall I put it? Well, I guess this is the Japanese version of Chinese cuisine. Yeah, it was greasy and full of sodium as is typical of Chinese food, but it has definitely been bastardised. It was edible (in fact, Rob enjoyed it), but I wouldn't call it authentic Chinese food. They used the wrong starch for several dishes, giving the ingredients a gluggy texture (I think tapioca starch was used instead of cornstarch). There weren't a lot to choose from on the menu, and there were perhaps 15 main dishes on the menu. I think we probably ordered everything on the menu because the food just kept on coming. From the top of my head, we had lots of prawn dishes, a greasy eggplant dish, lots of chicken, an omelette, two bowls of ramen, gyoza (dumplings), yakisoba (fried noodles), fried rice - the list goes on.

The food was okay and edible, but it is not good enough for me to want to go back. I think I'll stick with what the Japanese cook best - Japanese food. But everyone else seemed to enjoy the food so I guess this is how the Japanese enjoy their 'Chinese' food. Or perhaps I was mistaking their alcohol enjoyment for food enjoyment. We had lots of fun with the company - I enjoy socialising with my collegues outside of the school, and Rob enjoyed practising his Japanese with native speakers. My knees didn't enjoy sitting cross-legged on the floor for three hours though!

The group around the table in our private room:


Some of the food - I eventually stopped taking photos of the food because there were too many dishes!





Dessert - only two were available: Lychee sorbet and Lychee tofu. Both were quite nice - light and refreshing after a greasy meal: