All-you-can-drink with the inlaws

With all the stuff that the inlaws have done for me and my wife, I had been planning to do something in return for them. Dropping in at my wife's ex-co-worker's drinking party last week gave me an idea - nomihoudai! All you can drink! With my mother in law being a stern drinker and my father in law being rather partial to a drop, we made it happen this evening. The venue: a yaki tori place in Kurume. The participants: my inlaws, the wife and me.

Things got off to a brisk start, with the mother in law necking a stout glass of wheat shochu and immediately ordering more. I started on beer, and was able to comfortably keep up. The father in law was silently supping, as is his wont, and the wife was lagging a bit, her solitary glass of "sour plum wine" looking very mediocre indeed.

Food came and went, including (pay attention Englanders) torii tataki, aka raw chicken, which was rather delicious.



The drinks kept coming, the meat kept coming, and, just as is the case back in the family house, my father in law decided to go to sleep..



A bit of gentle teasing from the mother in law turned out to be pride before a fall, as she descended into what could only be called a highschool party-esque descent into vomity drunkeness. Going to the toilet and remaining there for 15 minutes was the first sign that something was amiss...



Joining her comatose husband in a kip was the second... and then, the coup de grace....



filling a soup bowl (blue rimmed, behind the black pot) with vomit. No, that's not rice in soup in that bowl, it's genuine mother in law's multicoloured yawn.

The verdict: a grand night, one of Japanese language, interesting and colourful drinks and delicious meats, and one in which it was proved, at least in my Japanese family, that the inlaws can't handle a bog standard nomihoudai without passing out and/or blowing bits...