Could You Pass the Crab Brain Pasta? - Japanese dinner party

Here I am sandwiched between two Australian guys named Nick, the three of us the only non Japanese at a dinner party where we were outnumbered by children under the age of four.

It's a bit of a long story how I ended up there involving multiple Australians, a Japanese girl who lived in France, and the Tokyo home of a Japanese women, who wrote popular books introducing French cooking to Japan

like 30 years ago

But the two people I have to thank most are my friends Nick and Mika for inviting me and hosting.

Our chef (and actually as I understand it he is a professional chef) for the evening also lived in France and prepared us a Japanese/French feast, the main course being ziti with a crab brain sauce (kani-miso). It tasted a bit different but was actually quite tasty.

The pasta was only one of many courses

Here we have a kind of beef artichoke stew, a plate of chicken sausage type meat thingy, edamame, salad, and a bowl of dipping vegetables that I couldn't quite identify...

That covers about a third of the courses, which included desert! A delicious tart.

The food was all around fantastic and more then we could all eat.

As I mentioned before there was a whole crew of Japanese rugrats running around

Here for instance is evidence that the socialization of Japanese children towards taking lots of photos starts very young.

Interestingly the party space was in the upstairs of the house in two bedrooms with a removable wall. We sat on the floor of tatami mats around low tables.

I had a great time, it seems to me that getting a bunch of people in a room around food is a great communal event in every culture.

Thanks again Nick and Mika for having me over!