Update July 2009 - There is construction next door to this place, and we have not seen it open for quite some time.
Location: Hamby town, from 58 turn west at the Lawsons that is opposite Foster's commissary gate. The restaurant is half a block down the street on the south side.
Hours: 12-2400 closed Wednesday and Thursday. English is spoken.
http://www.okinawahai.com/my_weblog/2008/10/amazingly-i-mad.html
This place has a slightly ramshackle, built-from-scratch feel. In the front, there is a walk-up counter to purchase smoothies (500Y) and other drinks. Inside, there are three seating options - at the 4 person bar, a 4 person table on the floor, or a side room with a sofa and coffee table. All of which lack something in the back support arena. The owner has pen drawings of Elvis and Bob Marley up on the walls, in addition to a painting of a half naked mermaid and some time-lapse photos of coloured lights at nighttime. The menu is in Japanese, but the owners will translate the dishes for you. Lunch sets are 850-1500Y depending on which main you choose. Jasmine tea is served with the meal, and you have a choice of ice/hot coffee/tea at the end. They come with a mini-cup of homemade soup - ours was okra and broccoli in a simple broth - and a great antipasti plate. Our plate had a cherry tomato wrapped in prosciutto and drizzled in olive oil, some pickles, a little Japanese-style pickled veggie salad, a piece of fresh tofu in soy, and chunk of salmon coated in herbed breadcrumbs and fried. We selected mid-range mains (1280Y) - tofu in Chinese sauce and Thai-style chicken. These were served in stone bowls over rice. The tofu hotpot was unremarkable, quite similar to the typical Japanese-Chinese diner tofu dish. The chicken dish was served with the chicken partially uncooked, ie pink tinged with white. Aghast, we faced down the prospect of actually returning a dish to the kitchen in Japan, something we have never before done. We asked the proprietor if it was his intention to serve the chicken raw. He replied that it was partially cooked, not raw, and something else I couldn't quite understand. He offered to cook it more if we liked. We felt strange about it, having eating lots of other meats raw or partially cooked, but in our training and experience there are two meats not intended to be raw: chicken (due to salmonella and campylobacter) and pork (due to trichinosis). So we had him cook the meat a bit more. The chicken was thin sliced and tender, but the sauce lacked the citrus-herb-chili punch of a real Thai dish. Dessert was a mini-slice of cheesecake with berry jam, two mini crispy cookies, and a very tasty little pudding. Coffee was drip, serves with prepackaged fake cream. So, an interesting place for its hippie rustic vibe and antipasti plate; perhaps we just ordered wrong on the mains.
