November 27th

Ate with the kids today. One of them introduced her friend as "Pan-Pan Man". Not sure what that was about.
Food was good, standard rice and milk, I left half my rice and all my milk. There was oden, I stand alone among the Doai ALTs in support of it, it's a salty broth with stuff floating in that you eat. Yummo.
Salad was good, but star of the show was the meat, curry and lotus root croquet. So good I ate it twice. Well, I had two of them.
4.3

26th November: Cheese what?

Today I have decided to start eating with the kids again. The teachers' dining room is driving me nuts. All the teachers assemble, wait ten minutes with their food in front of them while the last teacher meanders into the room. Once the highest-ranking member of the troop declares it is feeding time with his call of "itadakimasu", everyone tucks into their cold slop. The same ritual is repeated at the end of the meal, waiting for everyone to finish, then announcing "gochisosamadeshita" and everyone stacks their dishes up and is on their way. Took half an hour today.
Anyway, on to the meal.
Salad was good, 'cabbage' with chickpeas and kidney beans. There followed something of an anomaly. A cheese roll. This cheese roll was like a sausage roll except instead of sausage, there was cheap, soft cheese. Also, instead of pastry there was pulverised and reconstituted fish meat.
Today's rice had seaweed in it, which is pretty good, and the side dish was niku jaga (aka Mick Jagger). 3.8

School Lunch 25th November

A mid-level offering. Veg was OK, nothing special. Soup was miso with carrots, seaweed and tofu in it. Even the stars of the show, fried chicken and peanut blob, fail to raise the dish above mediocrity.
3.5

A New Beginning

Armed with an iPhone and a daily food-quality gamble, our hero launches a new blog cataloguing and reviewing his school lunches. A feast for the eyes and mind. First real post Monday...