I want good soba noodles!

Nothing eventful happened for a while, until yesterday that is. My friends and I went to San Francisco with the almost-traditional birthday celebration for the one month late b-day girl Angelica. Except the weather didn't quite agree with us and was gloomy and chilly all day long. Well, the weather itself didn't matter since we're indoor most of the time. But as we went down the streets of downtown SF, we couldn't help but wonder aloud: "It's a Monday, don't these people have jobs?"

So it is either because of the recession or because somehow everyone decided to take yesterday off, the places we went to were annoyingly busy. But for an even more annoying turn of event, the good Japanese eateries near Japan town were all closed on Monday. So we ended up walking excessively for nothing in the cold wind. In the end we settled for this one restaurant called 'Iroha' even though we went to 'Shabu sen' by accident at first because of the confusing store arrangements. The restaurant had a nice front with pleasant colorings, but the good parts pretty much end there. The moment we went in there the glaring afternoon light shines mercilessly from the panels of window directly at us, and the glare reflected off the glass planes of the tables in dirty specks of dust and smudges. The food and service were even worst. Not only did they not provide us with the kettle of tea unless asked, the waitress didn't give us any eating utilities until we asked for them. The food was baaaddd. Apparently those of us that ordered ramen has discovered that the broth is nothing more than water and flavored powder, and the chicken in the donburis tasted like rubber. I ordered the zura soba and nigiri lunch combo. While the soba sauce was rather tasty, and the noodle wasn't stretchy and soggy to the point I would complain (85 points actually), the nigiri platter was a great disappointment. The sashimi on the rice was less than fresh, there was this sorta floppy texture and I had to dump them in hot miso soup for a while before eating. And for either to cover up the not-fresh taste of the fish or whatever other reason they put a smear of wasabi in between the rice curb and the sashimi. And I don't eat spicy.

Some time during first 5 minutes of sitting down in Iroha, some of us started having a headache. It could've been the lighting or just the cold wind, but either way the pain has turned the little eating experience into something less than enjoyable.

Ooh, but then we did Prikaprika. :3