Kokoro

This is one of my favorite restaurants in Nakatsu, 'Kokoro'. K went to play Mah Jongg with some old friends home for Obon, the pay-off for which was to take all of us out to dinner. As it turned out, he ended up going with the guys on a guy night, but Kanji bought us all dinner anyway.










Left, fried cheese, 'nama' ham salad, German potato salad pizza. On the right, Korean Chijimi and what was left of the cheese platter after we devoured it - it's a big plate but there were only 12 of those tiny strips, in two flavours, plus 3 slices of camembert, a wee mountain of cream cheese, and six crackers.










All the upstairs tables are hung over with a tent! This actually makes the place quite noisy, as people seem to feel like they are in a private room, so they were laughing louder than they would normally in a restaurant (Japanese are very good at moderating their behaviour in public). We also felt less constraint, and the tent helped keep Erica contained!

This restaurant has divine desserts! This is a chocolate pudding with a creamy centre- I think it's actually just severely undercooked, so anyone who likes licking the bowl will enjoy it! If anyone knows a good recipe for this kind of cake, please pass it on!

You know it's a good restaurant when this is what you get when you ask for 'purin'. 'Purin' is a small custard, it usually comes in a plastic pottle like a yogurt, and if you order one in a restaurant, they will upturn it onto a plate and add some garnishing, but this really takes the cake - it sits on a bed of ice cream, surrounded by whipped cream, garnished with a pocky and a caramel cracker.

Three happy, well-fed children! We played 'eye spy' to keep everyone amused. Erica probably had the least fun as we are starting to get strict about her staying in her seat! "I spy with my little eye ERICASITDOWN something beginning with.... f"

Fondue!!!