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The above is a Japanese phrase that means something like "it was a great feast!" The greatest feast I had recently, though, was at a Chinese restaurant; Margaret Kuo's Mandarin, near my home in Malvern.

Eric and I were eating with an out-of-town friend, and I decided I wanted to try something I'd never eaten before. Since our friend was not a fancier of spicy food and I wanted a dish we could all share, that narrowed my choices somewhat. I finally settled on something called "Shanghai Traditional Pork", which supposedly was pork shoulder roasted in traditional herbs and spices.

When the dish came out, I was stunned. The menu didn't mention that they had been planning to give me the entire shoulder of the beast. An elliptical hunk of meat loomed before me, surrounded by a small ocean of brown sauce in which scallions floated like giant squid. Rising from the right hand side of the meat mound was a neatly sawed off piece of bone, looking oddly like a minature pulpit. And all I had to eat this huge portion of Roast Beast with was a pair of chopsticks, a spoon, and a fork....

Fortunately the chefs knew their craft. The meat was tender enough to fall readily from the bone, needing only to be coaxed with fork or chopsticks to fall into manageable shreds. Since the hunk was still far too much food for a normal human (especially since a bowl of rice came with it) about 2/3rd of it is resting in my refrigerator now, minus the bone pulpit and the half-inch layer of fat and gristle which covered the back of the piece. That's two more meals for me, or a meal for me and Eric, if not more.