Hard to escape Japanese food in NYC

It’s a small world after all.

New York City. Population: about 1.2 million. Essentially, that makes me 1 in a million. And I’m running around this madhouse of a town like a chicken without a head. So how is it possible that I keep running into people I know? It’s become the norm that I bump into someone I know at least once a day. I actually find myself thinking that it is strange if I don’t. In the subway, right as the doors open to the yellow R line headed downtown- a friend from college. On the street during my dinner break - a friend from high school. And in the park – a woman my close friend Jess and I became friendly with when we were shopping on Saturday.
Apparently one in a million isn’t such a big deal. What a let down.

Hoping to escape it all, Jess and I were looking for a simple dinner. All we wanted to do is avoid Asian food because it seems that’s all we’d eat in this town. Not too much to ask for right? Wrong.

“Too expensive,” “I’m not in the mood,” “It looks bad,” “Eh, look who’s eating inside,” and “It’s closed,” all kept us from chowing down. We were looking for champagne taste at a beer’s budget. Between all of our squabbling back and forth, somehow we ended up blocks away from our flat and hungry. Jess, being a good sport, agreed to check out some hole-in-the-wall eatery that, of course, I believed sounded wonderful – “a real cultural experience.” Turns out that all our negative Nancy-isms, except for “it’s closed,” accumulated in this restaurant… after we are seated.

The food wasn’t cheap. And what do you know - it’s Asian; actually, it’s Japanese. But not just Japanese (oh no do not say that or else the waiter will laugh in your face) it’s a noodle bar. The menu is totally in Japanese and, when we look around us, we realize we are the only Americans in the entire restaurant. If I didn’t know any better, I would have bet that Jess and I had hopped on a flight to Japan and were preparing to eat our first meal there. Feeling ignorant, we asked the waiter to order for us. He brought out bowls as big as our heads filled with soup, noodles, veggies and some sort of meat (probably chicken gizzard, I kid you not). Well, I am happy to report that the food was actually pretty tasty, lasted me two meals and didn’t make me sick. But I still don’t really know what I ate.

So it turns out that I am adventurous by steering Jess and myself to a random, local place that serves fish eyeballs as a delicacy. Nice one KP. And all I know now is that I am still going to have to try ridiculously hard to not eat Asian in this city. Oh, excuse me, Japanese, which is what I attempted to avoid in the first place. Back to square one.

On our way back home, Jess and I stopped in a tiny ice-cream shop in the East Village because we both agreed we deserved a treat for putting up with dinner. Because some higher being was truly having fun with us, it turns out the sundae shop we enter is a Japanese ice-cream shop (what can I say - when it rains, it pours!) that sells sesame, red bean, ginger and wasabi ice-cream. We were done being adventurous. We settled for reasonably normal flavors (I get the Mocha Chip, and Jess gets the Maple Walnut) in the smallest size they sell. We were nearly sick after the gargantuan bowls of Ramen and the little sweet treat was enough to curb the craving just in the nick of time.