naladahc | tripping along the golden path

I forgot Matt has lab on Thursday so I was all disappointed we couldn't go to dinner. Well... and mainly because I figured I owed him a night out since he gets all pissy when I just decide to eat simple stuff like gruel.

But we did end up going to Japanese Oriental last night since it is only about 3 blocks south of us and has a 1/2 Korean menu.

While I like Restaurant Japan, Haiku, and other Japanese places around Cowtown there's something special for me about Japanese Oriental. I guess because it caters primarily to the Asian crowd at Ohio State and therefore doesn't attract your basic white mildy-arrogant yuppie generican crowd that Haiku does nor the white suburban mid-40s generican crowd that Restaurant Japan does.

I guess this just adds a certain ethnicity to the place that I like since English is most definitely a second language of both the staff and the majority of the customers.

It is pretty much the same as going to an Indian place and hearing a whole lotta Hindi and Punjabi and such though Indian places here in Cowtown have all become fairly generic in this sense.

But anyway... I had the bulgogi with lettuce leaves that I was craving so badly as well as the expected sidedishes I love.

The kimchee was good and spicy. So was the giant picked radishes and the awesome vinegared cabbage. There was no dried anchovies this time thank god. I am just not a fan of them.

But anyway.

There was really no point to this entry other than the fact that I had a really excellent meal. Matt's dish, which I can't remember, was also really good.

One funny thing... the one guy sitting at the table next to me really looked like an Japanese anime character come to life.

This always fascinates me since most anime characters are fairly generic but distincly stylized. But this guy had the face, body type, and especially the hair that made him look like he walked right out of a Gatchaman episode. (Well... his attire was more groovy 70s hence the old anime reference.)

Fuck.

Now I have the Gatchaman theme in my mind.

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!