Billy style dinner

We had been cramming a lot into each day here in Japan, so on Sunday we didn't do too much. Slept in, got breakfast, did a little shopping back in Harajuku and then headed to Higashi Nakano to meet with Billy and have dinner at his place.

Billy met us at the station and we started walking in the direction of his apartment. We passed some interesting little places including "Parm Tree" with pictures of palm trees on the store front. The place was closed, so i have no idea what the do and or sell. We stopped at a place called Life. Life is kind of an all in one store - the first floor sells clothes and all sorts of things and downstairs is a full fledged grocery store. We headed downstairs to pick up items for dinner. We bought 3 different types of fish (salmon, tuna and a third fish that was seared), rice, udon, carrots, daikon, cucumber, goma dressing, lemon, rice, eggs, green onion, wasabe, ginger, udon sauce, OJ, ginger ale, edemame, gyoza and some ice cream bars. It was a lot of food and the pricing was extremely reasonable. We then walked back to Billy's apartment which was less than a mile away. Luckily the rain held off until we got inside.

We started prepping the food while we waited for Marc to arrive. Chopped veggies for salad, chopped fish, made rice etc. It should be noted that most of the work was done by Erica and Billy. I was in charge of edemame and udon boiling. Everyone should be thankful that i didn't have to do any real cooking. We also watched some US TV shows on Billy's computer. When Marc Arrived it was time to eat.

We started with a salad of Cucumber, Daikon and carrot with goma dressing. We also had edemame and gyoza, then moved on to fish. The salmon was marinated in lemon juice, salt and olive oil. It was very tasty and light. The tuna was raw then dipped in egg (also raw) and then dipped in hot rice before eating - also delicious. The seared fish was delicious on its own. The udon was served cold and dipped into the sauce with ginger, wasabe and green onion - awesome. We finished things up with the ice cream. Needless to say, we were all stuffed after that.

Once dinner was complete we chilled and watched some more TV - the office, 30 rock and californication. Billy also let us contribute to his apple tree painting. So now Erica and I have our own apples at Billy's, stop by his place if you want to see and add your own. Later on we headed back to Shinjuku to pack for our Kyoto trip on Monday.

Thanks Billy for your hospitality - dinner was awesome.