Local cuisine

Our first week here, Adam and Renee took us out to try one of their favorite local restaurants, Cafe DoKa DoKa. They said it was a pizza place, which I thought was a little funny considering it was a local Japanese restaurant, but it was SO yummy and definitely not your American pizza place. Grant and I split a pizza and a curry, but I have to say, the pizza was better and next time we'll get 2. It was a beautiful little building. You take your shoes off when you get there (no shirt, no shoes, no service does not apply here). You leave your shoes at the door and can either go barefoot or wear their house slippers (I opted for barefoot). 

Then, you walk through a little area with beautiful pottery lining the walls. In the basement of the restaurant is a pottery studio and a famous Okinawan artist works there and sells his pottery upstairs. We will definitely have to invest in some before leaving the island. Our table overlooked the west side of the island and we got to watch the sun set as we ate dinner. There was only one other person in the restaurant (apparently it is common for places like this to be fairly empty) so we enjoyed the view by ourselves and were able to walk around the deck, etc. The meal was also served on pottery from that artist, which made it even more fun.

 Loved the wood details inside. All the buildings here are made of concrete so the wood is a beautiful added touch to warm it up a little.

 Little pottery shop in the front

 Our friend's 2-year-old opted to wear the Cars Crocs :)

Check out this blog, she captured it beautifully (much better than me!)

It felt very comfortable to be there since we were with Adam and Renee who have been on the island much longer and have been to that restaurant before. However, we ventured out on our own this weekend to try Coco Curry, a favorite among Americans here, although our waiter spoke no English, the menu was in Japanese and it was definitely a little adventure (but we did it and can now be more confident going again!)

This is a chain restaurant and there are several on island. We just heard that they actually opened one in LA, so people were pretty excited about that. I read a little bit about it and everyone says the first time you have it you'll think it's pretty good, but nothing out of this world, but then you will start dreaming about it and craving it. By the time you've had it a couple times, you're addicted. I thought it was good, but not to the addicted stage yet. But then again, the first time I had Cafe Rio I thought it was just alright, so CoCo Curry might soon become my new favorite :)  

Of course, they have Hello Kitty in their advertising :) 

When you sit down, they bring you cups and a pitcher of water. Why doesn't every restaurant do this? I like it so much better than waiting for the waiter to come around and refill it. We perused the menu for quite awhile (trying to figure out what everything was and what we wanted to get) and then pushed the little button on the table indicating that we were ready to order (again, another genius idea).

We ordered a caesar salad (only $2 and delicious)!

"You can enjoy the experience of eating the curry more delicious by using this sauce"

Shredded chicken and vegetable curry

Chicken cutlet curry (looks kind of gross but was our favorite)-probably the fried chicken had something to do with it :)

It was a fun experience, and I'm grateful to have Grant to go through this adventure with. We are slowly learning little Japanese phrases, but really all I'm comfortable saying is hi, bye, and thank you. I have a long ways to go!!! We are excited to explore some more local restaurants and I'm sure we'll have our "regular" spots in not too long. I'm sick of all the food court food we've been eating on base for the last couple of weeks. It's been familiar and convenient but I'm ready to start cooking again and trying new places!