I just want good Japanese food. Do you understand? Some hot miso soup followed by cold, luscious salmon sashimi, and then unagi bento or katsu don with maybe gyoza or mabo tofu on the side.

Sigh.

After a disappointing round of attempted shoe shopping – I found a beautiful pair of brown suede flat pumps at Charles and Keith, but of course they don’t have my size – I searched all over Glorietta for Teriyaki Boy. Why Teriyaki Boy? Because it seems Haiku in Greenbelt 3 does not serve salmon sashimi, Tokyo Tokyo’s tiny servings can not satisfy my hunger, and there was no way I was going to Isshin by myself on a Saturday night. Besides, Teriyaki Boy has decent ebi tempura so I figured their other menu items were okay too.

It took me half an hour to find it because Glorietta does not have a store directory I can refer to. When I finally got to the restaurant, I found out they don’t even serve green tea. There is a Japanese tea kettle and some cups on the counter. Must be for display only.

I was famished and didn’t want to look for another place to eat. I ordered miso soup, salmon sashimi and unagi don.

The food was served fairly quickly. The sashimi was actually okay for something so cheap (only Php140). But either the cook does not know how to cut salmon properly, or the resaurant doesn’t buy the nice portion of salmon to begin with (because of course that’s expensive). It made me miss the wonderful salmon sashimi at that Japanese restaurant my dad would take us to in Clementi.

The miso soup was just all right – slightly hot bordering on lukewarm. I wish they had put scallions instead of chives in it. The unagi don was nothing but a tiny, sorry strip of grilled eel resting on a huge bowl of rice. I felt I was being insulted. Not only was that strip of eel not enough to eat a lot of rice with, but I was expected to pay Php228 for it.

I had to remind the waiter to serve my drink halfway through the meal. Then I saw him pouring hot water into the tea kettle and serving it at another table. I thought they didn’t have tea?

At least they had J-pop – real J-pop, not a cheap karaoke imitation – on the CD player. You have to give them half a point for trying.

I remember the first time I ate at the Ayala Museum’s M Cafe. I grabbed a bite from Maan’s spicy garlic tuyo penne and it was heavenly.

Now it is an oily, soggy mess.

What happened?