Christmas dinners and night views in Minatomirai
The lights around Minatomirai made Haruru’s Christmas dinners feel special. Her accounts from 2019 to 2022 also record the food, an evening when lunch left little room for dinner, and a return that went much better.
From haruru.1002’s Christmas accounts shared from 2019 to 2022, edited with permission.
2019: Christmas Eve after work
After work on Christmas Eve, Haruru went to Minatomirai for a Christmas course dinner. Her seat had a view of the night scenery, and the illuminations lifted her spirits.
The photographs include an appetiser platter, soup, fish, meat and a rice dish. A cake decorated with a Santa figure and a Christmas message added another festive detail.
With just a week of the year left, she felt how quickly it had passed. The lights and the meal made this an evening to remember at the end of it.
2020: a first taste of chateaubriand
The following Christmas, she chose yakiniku in Minatomirai. It was her first time trying chateaubriand; she found it soft and enjoyed it with salt and wasabi.
Tongue, harami and other cuts came in small portions that felt just right to her. The meat sushi topped with uni was a particular favourite. Matsutake chawanmushi and the cake and ice-cream desserts also earned happy notes.
She enjoyed the night view and received a Ferris-wheel ticket, hoping to use it on a later visit. The account ends with that possibility still ahead of her.
2021: a good dinner, but too little appetite
Haruru booked an early Christmas dinner at DOURAKU for 7 p.m. Before it, however, she had gone to a buffet in Chinatown at lunchtime.
The meat photographs show labels for zabuton, misuji, togarashi and fillet. She enjoyed the meat and foie-gras rice bowl, but could not finish them after the large lunch.
Even so, she loved drinking wine at the counter while looking outside. The photographs also record a lit-up sailing ship, a Christmas tree and illuminated street trees around the outing.
2022: return with room for dinner
The next year’s account begins as a second attempt after the previous Christmas. Haruru had eaten just a sandwich earlier that day and arrived ready for the meal.
At DOURAKU, dinner began with meat sushi that the staff seared with a burner. She liked the appetisers, and the meat platter had labels for zabuton, misuji, kainomi and fillet.
She had expected a foie-gras rice bowl from the menu but received a roast-beef rice bowl instead. There was plenty of meat throughout the meal, yet this time she finished everything, including dessert.
Her pictures show the illuminated Nippon Maru and Ferris wheel as well as a tall Christmas tree. With the lights and a dinner she could enjoy to the end, she felt the return had been a success.
Sources for this account
Haruru’s Christmas meals and night views in Minatomirai, shared in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.