August 8th Part 2

After our Round table Discussion, we traveled to Goes Around Cafe, a suprisingly simple restaurant near the beach that looks like a town house. It had a really simple sign painted on its cement awning in English. Even though the place looked cheap from the outside, I had a very good dinner there. There was a party atmosphere in the place. Several Japanese delegates played the piano, african drums and the guitar in the cafe and they performed a concert for us. Also, many of the delegates could sing, so they performed many traditional Japanese songs and J-Pop songs. They even started to play show tunes from the Phantom of the Opera and The Sound of Music. On the inside, the cafe was decorated like a hippie club in New York. I had a really good time in the cafe. We were served good food and we enjoyed lots of laughter. The food was so good, it kept disappearing. All of the food was served on party platters in small portions. We ate fried chicken dumplings covered in a hummus like sauce. We also ate a lot of edamame- a bean that you eat like a peanut. The beans are boiled in salt and you squeeze out the seeds and eat them. It just goes to show you that you can't judge a place by its outside appearance. I explained my impressions on good food in America with a Japanese delegate, Koichiro. Every where it seems, good food is not always served in the nicest looking restarants, but it is served in a way that creates an atmosphere for relaxation and laughter. What one really enjoys is the company of others in a bare environment, and that helps make the food taste even better. One can focus on friends and conversation and create an amazing experience. I went outside to the grill in front of the cafe to check on the progress of the food after my conversation and I was suprised to see that people were grabbing their food directly off the grill with their chopsticks. There were about 17 delegates standing over the grill eating as if it was an open buffet. They were telling jokes and laughing the whole time.