This photo was taken at a lovely cafe in Nara called Cafe Cachette. This cafe has one of the nicest serves of tacorice I have ever been served.
For the uninitiated, tacorice consists of:
A bed of rice topped with crushed corn chips, shredded lettuce, spicy beef mince, melted cheese, tomato salsa, mayonnaise and dusted with chilli powder.
I’m drooling just thinking of it now.
The barista did a magnificent job with the froth art, it has to be said. She was also very pleasant and liked talking to my Dad about all things Italy. Mind you, half of the time I was playing translator and trying to use what little Japanese I have.
While on the topic of cafes in Nara, I came across this particularly poorly named cafe.
Who on earth would call their cafe ‘Chafe’?!
And now a list of potential taglines for this cafe.
“Once you’ve sweat up a storm wandering around Nara, be sure to Chafe.”
“Why put up with the daily grind when you can Chafe so easily?”
“Chafe like no other.”
“Chafe?”
“Chafing the community and visitors of Nara since 2014”
Five was probably too many. But it is done now and there’s no going back. None. Not even for a moment.
Revisiting Nara for the third time was great. Todai-ji is one of the most impressive structures I’ve ever seen and the park that sits between the station and Todaji-ji is great to walk through and hang out with deer. Fare thee warned, those deer will try to eat anything. I saw them eating maps, for crying out loud.
The only reason I would ever eat a map is if that somehow made me absorb the knowledge of a map, meaning I could never get lost, but only in the area covered in that particular map.
Reflecting on this holiday has been harder than I thought it would be, mostly because I didn’t make any notes while my parents were staying. I just spent most of the trip trying to make sure they were having a good time and fitting in as much as I possibly could with the time they had there.
One particular moment just came to mind. Proof that my Dad still has a cheeky childish streak in him when he wants.
Between Teramachi and Shinkyogoku Streets, there’s a small karaage (fried chicken) vendor. This particular place lets you choose a variety of sauces and spices to put on your fried chicken. They have this one golden pepper spice which doesn’t burn as much as it lingers. So I thought I’d let my Dad sample a bit of the golden pepper. He agreed that it was pretty spicy. Two minutes pass and he acknowledges that the spice is still hanging around.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, my Dad grabs a tiny piece of fried chicken, covers it in the pepper and throws it on the ground towards an unsuspecting pigeon.
As the pigeon starts to chow down on the tasty morsel in front of it, my Dad pipes up with “Ha! Now it’s a cannibal! And wait until it tastes the spice!” and starts laughing.
To close out this entry, I’ll simply say…
..until next time!
“The only reason I would ever eat a map is if that somehow made me absorb the knowledge of a map, meaning I could never get lost, but only in the area covered in that particular map.” That’s a lie, I remember you eating my map when hiking up Mount Macedon…there is video footage somewhere 🙂
Haha! As I was writing that, I was thinking “I wonder if Grant will read this…”
As a matter of fact, I didn’t eat the map on Mount Macedon, I merely chewed on it. And yes, there is video footage somewhere.