Auckland Day 1 continued continued: Groggy dinner

On the evening of our first night, we were profoundly exhausted and I was far from hungry, but I guess we needed dinner. So we soldiered on, to a Japanese restaurant near our hotel called Umi.

Umi had a large outdoor seating area, which is weird because, um, it’s winter, but we elected to sit inside. I had suggested Japanese food because in my completely un-hungry state I wanted only seaweed salad. Of course, we chose the only Japanese restaurant on EARTH that doesn’t serve seaweed salad. Oh well.

My mom got the salmon teriyaki. It was a really good-sized portion—not too large, but definitely enough for dinner. I tried some of the soba noodles forming the salmon’s bed. The noodles were slurpy and absolutely drenched in the really strong teriyaki sauce. My mom even remarked that the dish was over-sauced—and she’s right; the sauce was just a bit too salty and powerful.

The spreading pool of blackness is the sauce. Oh, so much sauce.

I ordered the vegetable tower salad (or something like that). It was a very interesting portion of mixed greens (not just mesclun—other greens in there too, which was cool). There was shredded carrot and shredded something else on top—something white that I couldn’t identify. Sorry, but I was exhausted. A few slices of carrot and zucchini garnishes rounded out the salad, and there was a sprinkling of nori on top. Overall, this was one of the most delicious salads I’ve ever had at a Japanese food place—the nori, especially, added an interesting and distinct flavor, and the dressing was delicious. It was perfect for the occasion.

Veggie salad with nori hair

And then, on our way back, we stopped at the ice cream store a few doors down from our hotel. We both got small (HUGE) dishes of berry yogurt, which was extravagantly good. Happily ice-creamed, I fell into bed and slept for 12 hours straight. Ahhh.

Yum yum yum yum yum