Thinking Allowed: Eating for 11

Aurora doesn't particularly like big cities. When we lived near Paris she would always complain about our trips into the big city "too many people" " too smelly" "too loud." But it's Paris I would have to remind her. But what does Paris mean to a four year old anyhow - our small quiet forrest town had just as much cheese and pastry and what else mattered. So it was a little funny that we ended up in Sydney for Aurora's birthday. But we had just camped by various beaches for a week and half and Jakob was going to be in Sydney and we hadn't seem him for awhile so as usual love got the better of us. And while the rest of Australia celebrated Anzac Day by marching around remembering soldiers and drinking various alcohols we honored our daughter's birth and whims and followed her around town drinking cold drinks, playing in playgrounds, swimming, geocaching and having an epic dinner.

As per her request we went for Japanese food at a lovely restaurant with resplendent bento boxes and long lists of sushi we could order off tablets. Aurora ate a lot and looked fairly happy about being in Sydney. And then we went out for ice cream at a very appropriately decadent place across from a high rise whose entire outer surface is a vertical garden. We shared gelatos piled high in bowls with their Nutella chocolate crusts dripping down the sides. We shared a frozen yogurt so coated in jewel like toppings it was reminiscent of royalty. This was Riches. We gawped at the server when he encouraged us to replenish our supply of fruits and sauces and lollies whenever we wanted (we didn't). The children scarfed down gelato and yogurt as if they had been on a 10 day fast not just arriving from a large birthday dinner. It was all very happy birthday. And then we found out it was an Israeli ice cream chain and we felt like that more than made up for our meagre celebration of Passover as we were eating the fruits of Jewish exodus. Also, the fact that we liked the gelato so much made us feel like maybe we were very Jewish after all because we did like the watermelon mint flavor.

We rarely go out to eat any more because between four kids and a husband who finds sitting painful whats the point. But Auroras birthday dinner had been so great we felt inspired to repeat it all again. 11 does have two of the same digit after all. The next night we went to a different Japanese restaurant. This turned out to be a much fancier more authentically Japanese place. We felt good about being nearly the only non Japanese in the room. Just watching everyones food come was pleasing. Waitresses bowed deeply before delicately placing nuggets of seafood meat or vegetable into a sizzling pan or hot pot of roiling water. Waiters sashayed over to eager diners with plates loaded high with bright pink cuts of raw fish or bowls full of artfully decorated crustacean. I felt like this was all wasted on our family when I ordered tofu and the kids whined about there being no salmon avocado sushi. Also, Tova was the only person using the napkins as silk handkerchiefs to do a French song and dance that was unfortunately nearly lethal to the waiters and inspiring to Zadie. Once our bellies were full of various pieces of raw fish and unknown vegetables we all breathed a sigh of relief to be in the open air. Jakob looked at me and said "We should really go home.." "We should" I answered. So we walked to a nearby asian inspired ice cream shop and the polar opposite experience of the night before. We sat in the clean tiled place and shared our perfectly round scoops of flavours such as green tea, durian, and black sesame. The orderliness of the place must have been inspiring because I insisted on a strict eating order with comments about the flavors between each eating round. Im left feeling like we may be too grubby to ever live in Japan.