LAST NIGHT:  Shabu Shabu (Japanese for "Swish, swish," the sound of the veggies, noodles and meat make when stirred round the broth pot.)  Tasty, healthy food; friendly, attentive but not intrusive service; and darned fun.  Mother Owner stood behind the welcome cat (note below) and graciously bid us welcome in Japanese.  Son Owner stood, conscientiously slicing vegetables.  Daughter Owner took our order.  Mexican helper walked in several times, teasing Mother Owner with limited Japanese.  Dad Owner appeared later to chat up repeat customers, remembering personal details with polite humor.

J and I parked ourselves at a bar.  Across from us on the bar individual electric burners lined up, each topped with its own pot of broth.  The broth is made from a specific fish, a type of seaweed, and several quiet spices, and tastes like none of these things.  Instead, it provided a simple, slightly smokey flavor background for the meal to come.

Sister Owner brought J and me each a small rectangular tray lined with bamboo mats.  The trays, roughly 7x4 inches, were loaded with mindfully sliced vegetables (greens, star-shaped slices of carrot, and so forth), a few big brown sliced mushrooms, and snaky, long white noodles.  Mother Owner then brought us three sauce dishes, monkey-bowl size:  garlic sauce, soy-based sauce, and something else.  J and I sampled warm saki as Sister Owner brought our meats - beef for J, chicken for me.  The meats were frozen, then sliced paper-thin and rolled into 1-inch tubes, just the right shape to be managed with chopsticks.  Each of us received a sizeable portion of meat tubes, on a rectangular tray the size of the vegetable tray.  

We were encouraged to put the greens in the broth first, cook the meat, and save the noodles for last.  As we chatted and cooked our meal, spearing cooked items with chopsticks, or, as Gaijin I did with thenoodles, scooping with the Japanese soup spoon, Sister Owner came by several times to check on us and to skim our broth for the froth generated by the cooking meat. We cooked, dipped, ate, cooked, put items on rice in our rice bowls, and ate some more. 

The meal was very filling, but both J and I said "yes" when Father Owner came by to ask if we wanted soup.  Father Owner took the broth, now well-flavored by veggies, mushrooms, noodles, meat, and the occasional bit of sauce left of chopsticks, and poured it into a bowl.  He asked us if we could like "some spicy".  "Spicy" was a pepper or radish-based paste, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese-inspired.  I chose the Japanese paste.  Father Owner put a dollop on the edge of my soup bowl, allowing me to mix it to my taste.  Quite a nice "filling in the edges," as the hobbits would say.

The meal was capped off by a hollowed orange filled with irregularly-sized chunks of orange, toothpicks in two of them.  As we left I said "Arigato-gozaimasu," then J politely explained that
"gozaimas" was all that was required when thanking a neighborhood shop owner.
 
 

WELCOME CAT NOTE:  The Welcome Cat, I'm lead to understand, is a good luck or guest-pleasing symbol found in many Japanese shops.  It hearkens back to Long Ago, when a cat lead a Buddhist monk out of a nasty storm to a monastery and spot for prayer.  Today's welcome cats, I gather, are large ceramic affairs, sort of Hello Kitties on steroids, and look somewhat like large feline, smiling cookie jars.