
People’s fascination with cafes and restaurants still does not seemed to have peaked. Our post Covid economic recovery now is heavily reliant on the reopening of eating places. Ordinary people are now burdened by this Government to increase their patronage, and not to stop using those venues, no matter how this last year has exhausted, not just their will to keep going, but also their finances. And that is apart from those establishment themselves trying to keep heads above water. Often severely financially tired chefs would feature being interviewed on the TV while listlessly stirring a wooden spoon in a pot of gruel while facing a single diner, if not a totally empty café. There were so many lockdowns, lockouts and group limitations of no more than five or seven, that cafes were either knocked out or buckled under.
This Covid now has peaked and in Australia at least there hasn’t been any new cases and if there are, they are confined to just two or three people locked in hotel quarantine that are using aerosol nebulizers whose covid loaded vapors seep underneath doors or through air conditioners. TV is also showing politicians baring a single arm, smiling a bit sheepishly getting the first of the vaccination jabs. A problem now popped up is getting people actually interested in getting the vaccination. There have been almost as many shark attacks than people getting the Covid of late.
In this spirit of helping the country recover financially, my new found love Annette and I now have visited a number of well established eating venues that managed to withstand Covid and the shifting tectonic economic plates. One of them was a Japanese sushi bar. I have often stood still watching people eating and picking little plates that go around and around on some kind of rail system. I loved watching it and was mesmerized yet did not have the courage to ever try it out. It seemed such an advanced way of eating and I was conscious of my ineptitude of what would be a form of eating of which my ignorance would show as soon as I walked into such a bar. I have great difficulty in showing airs of confidence or ‘nous’ especially in public. Fortunately, Annette has no qualms about this and I followed her bravely and with some nonchalance. It works by the platters that the food comes around and around with in being of different colours and each colour has a price that differs from the other platters. When one has eaten enough you simply take the empty different coloured platters to the cashier and you get the bill.
It was a unique way of dining and we loved it. I know a sushi train bar here in Bowral and we shall try that out next time.
I will keep you informed.