lili got her chariot out of hock and drove me to my next
haven, the Four Points Kearny Mesa, which I find agreeable
enough, despite its sparse interpretation of Spanish patio
chic. The room came with two beds, so I invited her to stay
over, but she had been gone from home too long.

One last meal together, with me eating most of the stuff,
at Wa Dining Okan, a mile down the road from the hotel in
a crowded but unspecial-looking strip mall. This is the
southern California version of an izakaya; the food is not
cheap but mostly pretty well executed. The waits can run
close to an hour - the place is tiny, and the reputation
is exalted, and most of the dishes are done to order.

We started, or I did (no way would she eat any of this
stuff) with a special of scallop sea urchin carpaccio: the
scallops were good for modern scallops, not nearly so nice
as those from my childhood or any time before about 20
years ago; the uni were way small and of variable quality.
Too much soy sauce. Nice try, but not so special.

lili got to go to town with the soy-sauce braised pork
belly, which I thought not tender enough and not fatty
enough, but the flavors were good.

Fried shrimp were pretty good, the shrimp very tasty but
brined so the natural sweetness was no match for the salt.
Also, they had been butterflied, which lifted the shells
from the meat and made them crispy almost like puff pastry,
but the meat itself was a bit less tender than I'd have
liked.

Chicken thigh and green onion skewers were just what you'd
expect and rounded out lili's meal.

Special pudding was not so special - rather bland but not
unpleasant, notable for being drowned in some black
molasseslike substance.

I had Sapporo beer throughout the meal.

The wine lili got was sweet and obvious and not altogether
too bad, better than coach wine and not so good as first
class wine. It was Sutter Home.

Everything except the special carpaccio was reasonable in
price. Everything was good but not exceptional.

After dinner, we said goodbye and I got dropped off.
Bedtime was nice. Late checkout was nicer.

After which I continued on a segment run that, when I
started writing about it, I realized to have no interest and
no didactic value to anyone, so we shall end here.