Eating my way around Japan part 5 Zushi, farewell to my wonderful new friends

For my final two days on this visit to Japan I decided to stay in Tokyo, but as my plans evolved I used the first day for a trip to Kamakura which I'll write about later. It turned out that Mayumi and Yusuke (who looked after me during my visit Onagawa and made that trip so amazing) actually lived just one stop from Kamakura in Yusuke's home town of Zushi, plus they would be back home from their current trip to Onagawa. They suggested I met them for dinner in the evening once I had toured Kamakura. 

Japanese railways are surprisingly easy to navigate as you can see from the Kamakura Station sign (I like this sign as older versions of it appear as pillow shots in at least one Ozu movie) It helpfully tells me in English and graphics which station I'm at, what the next station in either direction is and which direction the train will be travelling from the platform I'm looking at .

This was the only photo I took of Zushi which is a seaside town but I was only there briefly to eat and enjoy the extra chance to catch up with my new friends.

We ate in a Chinese restaurant with the dishes being a fusion of Chinese and Japanese style food and ingredients. First up jellyfish, roast chicken and pork. This was my first try of jellyfish and it tasted fine but had the strangest texture of any food I've ever eaten and not the least bit like jelly at all.

Large prawns in mayonnaise ... the Japanese like mayonnaise 

My favourite dish of the evening, hot and spicy tripe , a splendid dish to have with beer and I was told Yusuke's favourite too.

I think this pancake style dish had vegetable and sardine in but can't really remember 

More dishes all excellent 

Desert, sesame coated and flavoured sweet dumplings with iced mellon in sweet milk

It was great to catch up with Mayumi and Yusuke once more. If they hadn't met me in Onagawa and showed me where all the temporary restaurants and shops were and organised visits and tours for me, I would have felt lost amongst the reconstruction and maybe been too phased to leave my hotel.

They also introduced me to " Katsu san " so called because on a visit to Nagoya he ate nothing but pork cutlets ( tonkatsu ) , he like Yusuke was a film cameraman who would be relocating to Italy soon for an assignment. We had a great evening in this Chinese restaurant where in the past Mayumi had worked for a while and it was fun watching her advise the staff how much salt a certain dish should have added. I can't thank them all enough for their help and hospitality and great company.