We celebrated Ritsukos birthday last week. And as usual for our birthdays, we went for dinner somewhere we would not normally go.
This year we went to Kobe. A quick lunch at a German hot-dog place (Kobe is good for non-Japanese food), a walk around town for a few hours, then a beer at Ebisu Bar right by Sannomiya station. It's a European-style pub where you can sit for an hour or two over a beer and talk. It's exactly the kind of place I often used to visit when in Sweden, and that I sort of miss here. They have some good dark beers on tap too, which is not something we're spoiled with here.
Dinner was at Ito Grill, by Nankinmachi in Kobe. As the name implies it's a steak and grill restaurant, vaguely French or western European in style. We had a terrine; soup; an excellent fried flatfish with mashed potatoes, vegetables and balsamico sauce; their signature beef stew; and dessert. It was all very good, if somewhat light on seasoning in my view (I'm a little too fond of salt for my own good). We had a good view of the charcoal roast oven, and while the stew was really, really good the steaks in that oven made our mouths water just looking at them. Perhaps we'll go again some day, just to try the steak.
Ritsuko got a new camera as her old one died late last year, a Panasonic GF2. I'm pretty impressed by it; a major step up from a small-sensor camera in quality, while remaining small and compact. Anyway, it meant we only had that camera with us, so I don't have any shots of my own from the dinner.
Stop it! You're making me hungry and it's only the early morning here!
ReplyDeleteBesides, grilled meat reminds me of Argentina and I had such a great time there that it's been very difficult being back home, especially changing from summer to winter in just a day.
As for the GF2, I use an Olympus Pen (more or less equivalent to the Panasonic) whenever I don't want to carry the DSLR and that thing can produce beautiful pictures. Almost too good for its size. Too bad some situations still make the DSLR necessary.
Yes, the GF2 is really nice. As you say, it's a complement to a DSLR or a medium-format camera; something small and light enough that you don't notice it in your bag.
ReplyDeleteBut nowadays I generally bring a small pocket film camera instead. They tend to be almost as small and even lighter than this kind of camera and the image quality is comparable. Of course that gives you the hassle of having to scan the film instead - you win some, lose some I guess.