A trip to Japanese Russia!

Before we even moved to Okinawa, I had already discovered so many things to see and do via Okinawahai.com. I had made myself a very long list of things I wanted to do. Of course, having a baby was NOT on that list, but it is without a doubt the best thing i’ve done on this island. Unfortunately, having a husband who was deployed for 8 months got in the way of that list of mine. Now that he is home for awhile, I’m finally able to go out and see a few of those things.

One very large part of that list was restaurants I wanted to eat at. I love discovering different cusines and was dying to eat some yummy Japanese foods. What I did not expect about Okinawa, was just how many OTHER kinds of restaurants there were. In fact, that day we arrived in Okinawa, we went out to eat Italian food (it was actually very good Italian, in fact).

So of course, I was skeptical about going out to eat at a Russian restaurant. After all, considering my husband is Russian, I’ve tasted real Russian food! I was a bit unsure how a Japanese Russian place would be. But, hey, it was worth a shot for a night out of the house!

Thanks to my great neighbor, I had a sitter for Zach. Of course he was already asleep when we left and we just gave her the monitor while she babysat Steve & Louise’s kids too. Before we left, there was an almost eerie look to the sky outside. This is one thing I will miss about okinawa... Our stunning sunsets up on Lester Heights!

isn’t that something? I did not edit this photo at all. This is what our view is at home.

And so it began, our adventure to a Japanese Russia!

After a trip to Naha, a view at a garage that actually uses a car elevator to put your car in the garage, and a walk down some small streets, we had made it..

Perestroika... the Japanese Russian Restaurant.

Just walking into this place reminded me of Dima’s family. It even smelled like his Grandma’s house! The decor was very well done, and the staff were all Russian.

Hand paintings on the wall

This was at the bar. I love the one with the toothpicks

I thought this doll was really freaky!

Outside the building

A freaky looking sign!

The food was just as great as the decor. We all got the “The Russian Course” which included a salad, borcht, peroski, a main course of our choosing, ice cream, and a cup of tea.

Salad

peroski

Yummy Borcht

Because I’m not a meat eater, I always struggle with Russian food. Not much on the menu for me- especially with a strict diet of low carbs & dairy. But i ended up giving in and ordering the perogies. After all, it was a special occasion and i’ve been so good for about 3 weeks now!

My perogies- blichinki

Dima’s dinner- Golubtsi This looked great and the veggies were awesome

So we all had a great meal. But the best thing about this night was probably watching the Russian music videos on the tv next to us! I couldn’t get over how funny they were. They were not appropriate for children at all! I was shocked at how riskey some of these videos were. But the random assortment of music was what got me. They switched from kids songs, to rap, to rock, to r & b. And they all had very interesting plots behind them. It was similar to something you would see at Bollywood!

Russian Rap video

Steve, enjoying his Beef Stroganoff and the videos!

Dima struck up a conversation with the waitress and found out that we needed to stay a little longer after our meal for a show. So we sat for an extra 15 minutes to watch some Russian dancing. This was very similar to what i’ve seen before at weddings and balls, but the second act was more of a Gypsy take on Russian Dancing. It was interesting all the same, and the costumes were very pretty.

A gypsy take

And so ended our Japanese Russian night. It was a great evening with great friends. The food and entertainment were great. Dima even said that the food reminded him of his grandma’s cooking. Guess we’ll be making it back if he ever gets homesick!