After Mirinda asked Lisa and Rupert to come to dinner and asked her if she’d like a Japanese Feast, I set about planning the menu. That was a couple of months ago. I started with a list of possible dishes and gradually whittled them down to, what I thought, was a good combination of variety and flavour.
(Note that I forgot to include one dish on the board. I also made tuna, avocado and wasabi. I have no idea why I forgot it because I love it.)
Because I’d never made okonomiyaki before, I had an experimental run back at the beginning of April so that Mirinda could okay it for guests. And, while they still didn’t look very pretty, they were delicious. Especially with the okonomiyaki sauce I bought from the Japanese Centre yesterday.
Anyway, suffice it to say, there’s been a fair bit of planning. Obviously not constant but a bit here, a bit there and, eventually, the job is ready to go and today was the day.
Since we restarted having people over, we’ve been having lunches. Which is fine, if sometimes a bit frantic getting everything ready by the early afternoon. This time, however, I insisted on it being dinner given the amount of work I’d have to do.
And, while I was busy most of the day, it wasn’t frantic until half an hour before plating up.
Lisa and Rupert turned up at 7pm and Mirinda took care of drinks and a chat in the garden while I went mad in the kitchen with the final bits and pieces.
Finally, with a little bit of help from Lisa setting the table, we sat down to dinner.
And it was a great success. They both enjoyed every dish (Lisa was particularly keen on the tuna, avocado and wasabi) and even made valiant efforts to drink some matcha.
Such lovely company.
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