Japanese, Julie, Joy

One of my favorite things is to be inside my house with my front door and patio door open, feeling the breeze inside on a gloriously sunny day. That being said, I love being outside too, but when you need to be inside, it is delightful to be able to still enjoy the day from inside my home.

I am one who loves all seasons and all weather days: I love rainy, drizzly days when I can stay inside and curl up on the couch with a good book. I love gloriously sunny days when you can enjoy being outside. I love cloudy days, when the mix of clouds themselves display a unique beauty. I love days when it is pouring rain. I love it when it snows (just not driving in it). Although sometimes it is hard to see after numerous days of cold or rain, there is beauty in each of them and I do enjoy it.

My friend Brooke {who has a new love of taking self-portraits of herself with my camera} and I have decided that we are going to try out all the Japanese restaurants in Langley, in our quest to find the best one. Although we have gone to a few already, I figured I'd start documenting them here on this blog.

Yesterday, we went to Ushiyama, which is on 96th in the warehouse area of Langley, just off 200th. We were greeted in a friendly manner from the moment we walked in the door. The decor and tables were trendy and we got our own private booth which was nice. My favorite part was the little order/tea/receipt things on each table. What a GREAT idea!! We pushed the tea button, and a minute later, like magic, a man appeared with a tray with two steaming cups of tea. No more waiting in our booth!
I LOVE Japanese food. In fact, I could eat it for every single meal I think. the one thing though is that the service in Japanese restaurants is not always that great. Often they leave you sitting at your table for a very long time. Not so here. (partly due to this fancy button thing). I think we had 4 different people come to our table to make sure everything was all right.
AND to add to that, the chef (not sure if that's what you call them) came to our table with our bill afterwards and said with what we had ordered, it was actually cheaper if we did 'all you can eat'. So he had printed off 2 bills for us with a 15 dollar difference. WOW. That impressed me.
The rolls were all pretty good, except that they fell apart a bit easily as they weren't rolled super tight. We had miso soup, sunomono salad, prawn tempura and an assortment of rolls and they were thoroughly enjoyable.
I think my other favorite part of the experience was when one of the guys serving us came and told us that he wasn't actually working, but he was just there to pick up his cheque because he had his appendix taken out... yet he kept serving us. It gave us a good chuckle because we really didn't know what that meant. He probably just found us irresistibly attractive.

So, on our Japanese restaurant rating scale, Brooke gave it 3.5 out of 5 and I gave it 4 out of 5 (I REALLY liked the buzzer thing). Then again, we haven't rated restaurants before, so who knows.

I just finished reading Julie & Julia and all in all it was a fairly good read. Different from the movie in a lot of ways. Perhaps a bit more crass at times as well, but when looking past that, I did enjoy her writing style. I enjoyed the overarching message in the book of doing something larger than life, of engaging in something that gives purpose and meaning. For those of you who haven't read the book, or seen the movie, it's the true story of Julie Powell, who decided to cook her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and through it she discovers a bit more of what it means to live life fully.

Here's a couple quotes:

"Sometimes you get a glimpse into a life that you never thought of before. There are hidden trap doors all over the place, and suddenly you see one, and the next thing you know you're chopping lobsters in half, and the world's just so much bigger than you thought it was."

"Julia taught me what it takes to find your way in the world. It's not what I thought it was. I thought it was all about -I don't know, confidence or will or luck. Those are all some good things to have, no question. But there's something else, something that these things grow out of.
It's joy."

"I thought I was using the Book to learn to cook French food, but really I was learning to sniff out the secret doors of possibility."

I want to discover doors of possibility and open them and not be stopped by fear. To embrace life more and live more fully. And through it, to live a life of joy, being content in all things and making the most of every moment.