Showdown

Thank god for Denis and Hiroko.

Matt and I really (really) love Japanese food and living in Japan, you eat a lot of it. But one thing missing on Japanese menus is the quintessential Aussie Roast Dinner.

Last night, when Hiroko cooked up a pot roast (pork and lamb) with rosemary roast potatoes, followed by apple pie and tiramisu, I thought I'd died and gone to Gabriel Gate Heaven. Since arriving in Japan, we put roast dinners into the bag of "antipodean luxuries we have to sacrifice for the Japanese experience". We only bought a convection oven a month ago, and before that, had discovered it was, in fact, quite difficult to cook a roast in a fry pan.

But our nemesis Denis, sagely ventured;

"You gotta have your pork roast on a Sunday." Ah, pearls of Aussie Gold.

The reason for the evening (besides chowing down a disgraceful amount of food), was the Scrabble Face-off between Denis "you better brush up on your dictionary, Fielding" Cusack and Kinki "Nobody beats me at Scrabble" Fielding (erm... that would be me). Oh, and Matt and Geoff were there, too (and no, I'm not saying who won). After two scrabble games, all fired up, we broke out Trivial Pursuit (and the Hardy's chateau-de-cardboard, god help us) and played board games til 4.30am.

Who the hell needs the bright lights of Roppongi or Shibuya when you got a roast dinner, top-shelf company and Australia's great cask wine by your side?