ponkan

last night i went to dinner with meus muitos amigos. all of these friends being good friends with helio. i have met them a handful of times at various parties and get togethers. the 10 of us went to diego's japanese restaurant in downtown são paulo. it has been open for about a year and a half now and it doing quite well. the place was very big and very modern with crisscrossed dark wood ceilings and art on the walls. a long sushi bar and about 20 small tables for dinning. to the right there was a wide and shallow staircase which led up to 3 huge tables that were sunken into the floor. this very much reminded me of the wonderful peacefood dinner at hangawi before i left new york. we took a seat and started ordering everything we could imagine. diego personally picked a number of vegan dishes for me to try, mainly because i could not understand the menu and mostly because it is his restaurant and he knew what would be best.

the restaurant was basically empty with one unfamiliar table. it was 10:30pm and the restaurant closed at 11. seated at the first big table was diego, his beautiful namorada Lí, her sister and namorado and 2 other friends. when they finished with their meal they came to sit at our table, the last table up the stairs in front of the window. by the time all of our food came the restaurant was empty, even the waiters and chefs had gone home. diego was now serving everyone, bringing bottles of sake and água para mim. i was the first to receive food. i was served a steaming bowl of hot tea and miso soup. sipping one and then the other, admiring it's familiar flavors. then a plate of veggie tempura for the table. the most beautiful arrangement. various veggies scattered on the plate with a fan of fried angel hair pasta as decoration. this was accompanied by small bowls of cucumber salad with sesame and poppy seeds... delicious. next came a small black plate with 4 wedges of pure white tofu topped with scallions and shaved ginger. it was honestly the best tofu i have eaten in my life. so smooth with the cleanest taste. placed in the center of the table were two steaming plates of mushrooms, or cogumelos. one was thick and meaty sliced into strips soaked in a delicious sauce. the other was made up of tiny mushrooms with tiny heads that clumped together. both outstanding but i preferred the first. then more plates arrived of colorful fishes; soft orange salmon, purple octopus, others that were pinks and creamy whites. they all dug in, with chopsticks flying everywhere. the last plate arrived, my dish. every kind of shaped sushi filled with every kind of shaped cogumelo and pepino and arroz and alga. i was in vegan heaven. the sushi is also my all time favorite. everything about the night was perfect.

the 12 of us laughing and eating and shouting and tickling. climbing under the table to sit next to the person across from us. running to the kitchen to make ourselves a fresh squeezed juice. the place was ours and we were V.I.P. some more friends popped in and out to get a peak at the wonderful night. but the 12 of us stayed with each other until our eyes could no longer stay open. we called it a night at around 3:30 am crawling to our cars and hugging goodbye.

até logo, see you soon.

www.ponkan.com.br