On Friday August 25th my wife and i joined a dinner party aimed at entrepreneurs in this area, mainly Tajimi but we were able to join in even though my business is located in Yaotsu. These two city/town are about a 30 min drive away from each other.

The event was held in a traditional style japanese restaurant. I believe they said that this restaurant has been around for around 30 or so years, it was built with traditional Japanese methods with intricate joinery and large beams that are key elements of traditional Japanese architecture. The restaurant has 5 large seating tables that holds around 10 people each in a tatami style sitting area and across from it is the open kitchen with a bar stool for individual seatings. The kitchen is fully open and you’re able to see the chefs hard at work prepping food for over 50 people.

This event was put on by a gentlemen name Sonohara San, he works closely with entrepreneurs in Tajimi to help them grow their business and connect them with other business that might work well with each other. Workers from Tajimi City Hall also attended the dinner party. There was a large variety of entrepreneurs, ranging from designers to artisans to manufacturers and financial experts. I’m really glad that we were able to attend and meet a bunch of entrepreneurs like ourselves. Some of them I can really see us working with in the future.

I’m not big on Japanese food however last night food was pretty good. Some of the highlights the chicken gizzards, this big platter of food, the pork was amazing and then this fish dish was very unexpected, it had a lot of flavors backed onto it, layers of flavors that reveal themselves after every bite. It was really amazing and not your typical Japanese flavoring. I’m not a food expert or a foodie by any stretch however I do enjoy delicious food whenever I can. 

There was also some live music which was great. The band also own their own business. They clean up houses after the owners have passed away so they are able to collect a large volume on items that can be restored or reuse. They also collect beams and lumber from house as they’re being torn down. The group is looking to work with someone to come up with various ideas on how this can turn into a different avenue of income. 

After the dinner we did the very traditional end of dinner ritual here in Japan. Members of the dinner party will stand in a circle and the leader of the group which is Sonohara San with say a few words and lead everyone into a short chant that ended with synchronize clapping with one large clap at the end.

Afterwards we broke into smaller groups. I ended up with another architect, furniture maker and a lighting designer. We went to a random bar which was run by these 80 year old couple. The food was pretty amazing there too. It was one of those restaurant that you can walk into and feel that it’s been aged throughout the years. There was two large cooking tables where the chef, in the case the old would prepare the food right there in front of you. I’ve been to restaurant like this before but something was different about this one. Usually these kind of establishments are for pricier restaurant where they kind of focus on a show where they cook and perform. This was more of a real in your face kind of experience. We ended the night with a few shot of some japanese killer hornet sake

It was ok.