Stick food birthday. I took my friend Jo-Ann out today for a belated birthday lunch. Jo-Ann chose Japanese food as a theme, so we left Marin for San Francisco's Japantown to find just the place to celebrate. After walking the corridor and checking out menus, and more to the point, the plastic food displays, Jo-Ann wanted to try Kushi Tsuru. Kushi means 'stick', and is a type of cusine where meats, fish and vegetables are skewered, coated with a light batter and bread crumbs and deep fried. Tsuru means crane, and is a symbol of good luck in Japan. I am happy to report that there were no skewered cranes on the menu.

Jo-Ann chose a bento box with tempura, nimono (simmered vegetables), broiled salmon, a croquette (potato based), sashimi, sushi and rice. I had not intended to blog this as after all, it was her birthday celebration and time for girl talk, but she queried me about my camera since she thought the food so beautiful, and encouraged me to take the photos for a blog post. So that's why I missed the photos of the miso soup, which was good. Jo-Ann reported that she enjoyed her box, although the tempura was a tad too oily.

I chose the kaiseki bento box. It had four kushi -- eggplant, zucchini, beef and shrimp as well as cucumber salad with shrimp and octopus, then broiled salmon, bara sushi (in the left corner of the photo - sushi rice with a variety of flavored toppings) and tuna sashimi. It was excellent.

Then we went shopping... and although window shopped a number of places, came out with the big bags from Ichiban Kan. We bargain loving ladies love picking up sturdy and pretty gift bags, medium and large for $1 each and refills in those environment saving bags which are also cheaper than the entire shampoo/conditioner/bath gel original bottles... and other such irresistible things. Since it was so hot and muggy today, we had to stop along the way for the above Hawaiian ices, passion fruit and watermelon flavored above. The shaved ice takes a long time to eat, so we lingered and chatted and had a marvelous day.