La Zona, Kawasaki 川崎
We treated ourselves today. Instead of the usual bento, we ate out for lunch. On weekends and holidays it’s hard to find a restaurant that doesn’t require a long wait. After walking around LaZona’s 4th floor for a bit we finally decided on restaurant Hateruma はてるま波照間 specializing in food from Okinawa.
The kids both fell asleep during out search so we were actually able to have a leisurely lunch. Had they woken up, there were high chairs available. The interior is really cozy and I liked the bamboo, tropical village setting. There are different seating options – tables with chairs, tables with small booth-type seats and tables over tatami mat with the cut out spaces for your feet…so it’s pretty easy to take young kids there.
We tried the taco rice lunch set, and the soukijiru soba soup lunch set. At first I thought it was tako, as in octopus, rice. But it’s taco, as in a Mexican taco, rice . It has the fillings of a beef taco over steamed white rice. There is a spicy salsa-type sauce on the side. It comes with a side of popular Okinawa style udon soup. I think taco rice became a popular Okinawa dish because of the American army’s long presence in Okinawa. The sokijiru soup has soba which is a lot thicker than the soba I know. It more closely resembles udon with its thick and chewy texture. The soup broth is light and it’s topped with yummy tender pork slices, kamaboko, and some scallion.
For dessert we tried this ice cream concoction from Sweets-En. It has a scoop of green tea ice cream, a scoop of ice cream made from sugar cane, some mochi balls, crunchy stuff and azuki red bean sauce. Very tasty!
