Hot Pot Deliberations at Posh

Danny picked me up at my place after work as planned and we drove over to the restaurant on Burrard and Broadway where he’d reserved a table. It is called Posh and is Japanese style Hot Pot.

When we arrived around 6 p.m. there were only a few customers. In fact, when we first tried the door it stuck, and it looked like they had not opened for business yet. We peered through the windows and seeing people inside, tried again and entered.

It is a new restaurant, very modern in look and feel with a 4-way hi-definition TV mounted over the tables which can be viewed from any place in the room. They didn’t have the Canucks game on though and besides, Danny and I had a subject we needed to discuss: the website.

There is a gas cooking ring on every table on which is sitting an empty cast iron pot. The server, a thin young man elegantly dressed in jet black, bought us a sheaf of slips on which the menu was displayed, that being a variety of uncooked vegetables, mushrooms, tofu, noodles and meats that are carefully sliced and prepared to deliver to the table.

I didn’t have a clue how to proceed so Danny directed the process asking if I wanted this or that and writing a number 1 to 4 beside the item which indicated how many portions. The meats were delivered in small square russet-lacquered trays, in this case pork and beef thinly sliced and artfully displayed and the rest arrived in a heaping white ceramic bowl.

Because Danny was driving we ordered tea only and it was a kind of deep orange colored and flavorful brew with evidence of the tea leaves and stems in the cups.

Although how it actually happened escaped my attention, at one point I realized that the iron pot had been filled with what looked to be sliced cabbage and a variety of greens, the burner lit and water and a kind of teriyaki sauce added to turn it into a flavorful soup. I think Danny might have been doing this as I was busy talking.

The atmosphere was relaxing, kind of like cooking and talking over a campfire. We added portions of whatever we had ordered into the soup and Danny broke an egg (there were 2 uncooked eggs served on a plate) and dipped the meat in the raw egg before adding the thin strips to the pot.

I asked Danny to explain the rudiments of the web design system he is planning on using as things are quite different now from the basic HTML code I used to design my website pages years ago.

We discussed the concept of the site and what kind of message and feel I planned to deliver. Danny is trying to guide me in a direction that will help the site pay for itself at least and so we exchanged ideas on that subject.

Finally we were full and talked out. Although we had been there over an hour and I had not stopped eating, the bill came to under $30 before tip. When we turned to leave, I saw that the tables were now full, and a line-up gathering at the door.

It is easy to see why such a place would quickly become a favorite dinner hangout.