The ANA Experience - Narita/Taipei (NRT/TPE) Route

My tickets were booked a bit late for my trip to Taiwan, so I ended up with an extra stopover at Tokyo Narita, then continuing on ANA (All Nippon Airways) to and from Taipei. It was my first experience with a Japanese airline, and I was generally impressed with the courteous service and food selection.

ANA Japanese Dinner, NRT to TPE - Clockwise from top left: Firefly squid with crab, beef and vegetable galantine with grilled tofu, Japanese pickles (radish, etc.), kelp cured shrimp and flounder sashimi, fried rockfish and vegetables with rice. There is also miso soup in the black bowl, and a dessert in the paper in the middle of the plate. And notice the bottle of sake in the upper right corner. Nice touch.

Salt-Boiled Firefly Squid (Hotaru Ika) and Swimming Crabmeat with Tosa Vinegar - Firefly squid congregate en masse off the coast of Japan each spring to spawn, creating a spectacular light show due to their natural phosphorescence. They are a sign of spring, and were celebrated on the May business class menu on ANA. Here, they were lightly boiled and served with crabmeat, some kind of sea tasting jelly, and something that reminded me of jellyfish. The taste was light, if not a bit fishy. The crab and sea jelly were pretty tasty, and the jellyfish add texture mostly, not much taste there.

Airplane Sashimi - Pink Shrimp and Kelp Cured Flounder - These were lightly vinegared to help preserve them, as they obviously have to be kept in storage for some time before service. Although not like sitting at a sushi bar, these morsels still were enjoyable, and a nice luxury at 30,000 ft.

ANA Japanese Dinner, TPE to NRT - Clockwise from top left: Soba noodles, Japanese pickles, appatizer dish (tamago omlet, pistachio crusted shrimp, fruit jelly, tiny dried fish), green tea mochi cake, fruit plate, beef and vegetables with rice. Again, there was miso soup, and sake.

Mandarin Lesson... In Japanese - The on demand entertainment system was convenient, so I thought I would pull up a learn Mandarin lesson to stay sharp. Turned out that it was only available in Japanese, which made for interesting viewing. I probably picked up more Japanese than I did Mandarin. For example, did you know that the Japanese word for "credit card" is "ku-re-di-to ka-a-do?" Well, now you do.