There is a Japanese restaurant in a strip mall by the local supermarket. The whole shopping center has been re-done and is pretty spiffy now. We walked past the Japanese place last week and it looked nice. Somehow we had never been here. Didn’t know anyone else who had been here, either. I remembered that there was a similarly named Japanese place near that spot over 20 years ago. It had the feel of a fast food joint with formica booths, order at the counter. We used to go there when the kids were really small. They would eat teriyaki and rice and if they made noise or a mess it wasn’t a big deal. The restaurant also has a big bookshelf of Japanese manga comics, otherwise not much to remember.

Today we went there for lunch. Nice place with Japanese and Korean dishes. Pretty busy at lunch. Had to park over in the supermarket parking lot. Had a pork bulgogi bento, which was really the reason I wanted to go. Our old stand-by Korean place burned down many years ago and I never found a suitable replacement.

I couldnt resist asking the waitress if there was a connection between the old Manga Teriyaki joint and this new place. Yes, there was. The parents ran the Teriyaki place and now the kids have taken over and upgraded it into a nice sit down restaurant. Not sure when the changeover happened. I’ll definitely be going back.