Meditations on my missed Japanese meals

I miss my weekly Japanese dinner. The restaurant where I go to have the meal, Isshin, which is on the side street next to my office, is closed for renovation and will open only at the end of next month.

I have been going to the eatery every Friday since I came to Beijing toward the end of summer. I like its subdued interior and, of course, its food and the reasonable prices.

I also like it that the restaurant's two waitresses - one of them from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and the other from Shaanxi province - recognize me as its regular. "The usual?" one of them will ask when I enter the room and find myself a table among the other diners.