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We pull up to the side of a series of shops that I honestly can’t for the life of me identify, but they insist that this is our stop.
We enter the building, and I’m suddenly greeted with…so much.
“Irashaimase!” the entire staff shouts joyfully at us.
“That’s a normal welcome to any business,” Xane explains.
The décor in front of me is lavish and exquisite. There are simplistic wooden structures laid out across the shop, and the seating areas are colored and styled to match. The central sort of bar area has more varieties of seafood laid out ready to prepare than I could ever even begin to name.
It’s absolutely incredible.
“Bar,” Xane commands me.
I bite my lip; these orders are really starting to get to me—in a good way.
I get up to the bar and stare around me. The sensation of needing Xane to do everything for me is very alien to me, but I don’t really have a choice, right? I just have to lean on him for things, and since he’s doing so much for me, it would be rude not to submit to his orders…at least while we’re here, I guess.
“Sumimasen,” Xane says. I whip my head around, confused, but I realize he’s talking to the man behind the bar. “San no nigiri shyokuji to chyashu ramen, kudasai.”
Hearing his fluent Japanese is incredibly impressive to me.
The man behind the bar nods low, then he sets to work on…whatever Xane just ordered.
I watch in amazement, but I can’t even begin to piece together what exactly he’s making. It’s all just a blaze of rice, noodles, and other various things I don’t know the name of. It’s all so colorful, and it smells like absolute heaven.
“We’re getting some pretty basic food this time around,” Xane says. “Next time we come, you can get more adventurous, but keep an open mind to any food.”
The way he says that isn’t a suggestion; that in itself is also an order. I start to squirm in my stool. His forceful nature is a huge turn-on.
Our first course is finally set in front of us. It’s a huge, steaming bowl with noodles, meat, various vegetables, and a few other things.
Xane nods at me to dig in before doing so himself. He expertly pulls up a mouthful of noodles with his chopsticks, then he gulps them all down with a graceful slurp.
“That’s how you show you like your soup,” Killian explains. I must have more of a shocked look on my face than I thought; he’s staring at me like he’s trying to hold back a laugh.
I hide my blushing in the steam rising from my bowl. I fumble with the chopsticks a little, but I go for the first thing I’m familiar with: a hardboiled egg floating on top of the noodles.
It’s unlike any egg I’ve tried in America. The yolk is soft and almost wet still, and the white has soaked in some of the soup broth, giving it a salty taste.
I can’t help but dig into the rest of it. It’s incredible. The noodles are firm, but have a nice give to them; the meat is soft and just a little fatty; and the vegetables are perfectly paired with everything to give an incredible variety of textures.
“Oh my gosh,” I say between mouthfuls. “This is absolutely incredible! What is this?”
“It’s just ramen,” Xane says, his bowl already finished.
“Ramen? Seriously? This is nothing like the quarter packs I get from the store!” I say, staring at my bowl in complete disbelief.
“Welcome to Japan,” Killian grins between bites.
Once we finish our bowls, a full new set of plates is set before us. Now I’ve had basic sushi before, but what I’m looking at is nothing like I could have ever imagined. In front of me is a beautiful rainbow of colored fish, some with wrappings or sauces, others specked with what I at least recognize as caviar, and even more fanned out in a beautiful array at the side of the plate.
“Wow…” I gasp, the only thing I’m even able to formulate enough in my mind to say.
Xane goes through each, naming off the various fish, sauces, and toppings, but his words are all a blur to me.
“So these are…raw, right?” I finally say.
“Well, yeah,” Killian says, already sampling through the pieces on his plate.
I’ve never had raw fish. The only sushi I’ve had was a basic California roll; I’ve always been too nervous to try the raw stuff.
“Try it,” Xane says firmly.
His words roll through me, and my heart skips a beat. I’ve never had someone be so commanding. My body obeys his command before I can even fully register what he said, and I pop an orange piece on top of a bit of rice into my mouth.
The flavor explodes in my mouth. It’s soft and not fishy at all. The rice has a gentle sweetness, and I notice a slight kick from something I didn’t see before. I recognize it as a bit of wasabi; it must have been between the fish and the rice.
