End of the breakfast buffet

I’ve always been a fussy eater. When I was very small my parents worried. They found a book to read me (books usually worked) where a little girl didn’t eat until she had a plate with a house on it. In the story there were elves or fairies living in the house and the girl had to eat all her peas or they would roll into the chimney and cause all sorts of problems for the creatures living there. The book came with a plate, which totally freaked me out. There was no way I was going to let anyone put food on top of a fairy house, let alone eat from it. What if I accidentally chowed down on a mythical creature?
A breakthrough finally came when I was about 8 and agreed to try one baked bean on toast. From that moment I tried to be a bit more adventurous but it was always tricky, especially as in my twenties a lot of food made me ill. I never managed to like fish, despite knowing how good it is for you; the oily variety can actually make me vomit. Mushrooms and fermented foods were particularly difficult, which was a little unfair on someone who actually liked drinking.

When my children were little I decided not to have any battles over food and they have grown up less fussy than me. My son is a very adventurous eater now and is my go to encyclopaedia whenever I’m not sure what something is. The navigating of food was one of my major concerns about this holiday.
“They eat so differently,” I worried him with my endless concerns. He was patient: took me to a Japanese restaurant in Brighton, explained that a don buri was a dish of meat and rice, ramen was like a pot noodle, yaki means grilled and that I would be fine because they have pictures or models of food that you can just point to. The don buri I had on that day did make me feel bloated and a bit woozy but I coped.

The Long Suffering Husband suggested that we book nice hotels with a breakfast buffet for most of our stay. “We can fill up at breakfast and not eat for the rest of the day if we need to.”
A breakfast buffet in a hotel always amuses me. They try to cater for every nationality. There is sausages for the Germans, pastries for the French, egg and bacon and cornflakes for the British, fish and soup and rice for the Japanese, meat stew for the Koreans, pizza for the Italians, and Cava and churros for the Spanish. There is a salad bar, fruit, yogurt and cereal too. It amuses me to watch what people choose for breakfast. I’m sure they pick things that they wouldn’t normally go for. I watched a young Japanese woman eat a whole bowl of cherry tomatoes and then struggle to eat cornflakes with her chopsticks.

We have tried many things and most are delicious but I am now craving a crusty ham roll and a roast dinner. My friend who is also in Japan at the moment has been adventurous with food (her son is living here) but still texted me, “TGF Starbucks.”

Last night we were beginning to find our feet and walked into a restaurant without really working out what we were going to eat first. They didn’t have an English menu but a nice girl game over and tried to explain what everything was. The LSH hoped to order a side salad and pointed to a picture of something green. “Retisse,” said the helpful girl. I had seen someone eating a dish of stir fried noodles, as I came in, so I pointed to that. The LSH chose takoyaki. “Octopus balls,” said the helpful girl. Another man with no English came over to actually take the order. When the LSH pointed at the takoyaki he was answered with some very fast Japanese that sounded, to me like a question. He has been leaning Japanese but his skills were not up to scratch. I thought maybe he was asking him how many he wanted and suddenly remembering the word for eight said, “hachi”.

First to come up was a plate of fried cabbage and pork. It was delicious but not the lettuce we were expecting. Then a takeaway box arrived containing eight teriyaki flavoured octopus balls. He had pointed to the wrong picture, still it was fine to eat from the box. Then my noodles arrived.
On top of my stir fry was something that looked a bit like flat grey worms. “They’re moving!” I said. The LSH assured me that I was seeing things. The noodles were nice, even though I knew that amount of soy sauce would make me feel a bit light headed I decided to be brave and tuck in properly.  I didn’t like it. I really didn’t like it. It was fishy. I tried to pick around it but they all fell through and every little mouthful had a taste of cat food past it’s best.
“It’s Bonito flakes,” texted my son when I asked him what it was later. He sent a YouTube clip of them moving around. I googled for mor information. They are dried and fermented wafer thin flakes of fish that aren’t (thankfully) alive but move around because they are so thin and are wafting around in the steam of the food.

For our last few days we don’t have a breakfast buffet booked and we’re going to take our chances with the restaurants. Maybe I’ll persuade the LSH to go to Starbucks for a muffin and grab a ham sandwich and packet of crisps from the Family Mart and maybe get pizza for tea. But it’s only one more day.