Huh.

We took Ryan's parents to our favorite okonomiyaki (Japanese savory pancake) restaurant in Tokyo last week. As we were leaving, they brought over a gift for Ian. It was wrapped in a package and looked like this:

We waited until we got home to investigate. Ryan has the hiragana characters memorized, so he read the words ton-katsu on the package. Ton-katsu is breaded, fried meat or veggies. It's similar to tempura, but definitely a thicker breading. It's pretty good. Upon opening it, we saw this:

Needless to say, we were a bit confused. Ryan took the first bite and had an awful face. It was basically a fried stick without any meat inside and awful seasoning. After Ryan's reaction, I chose to lick it. Yuck! Ryan then proceeded to bring it to Bill to taste. Here was Bill's reaction:

I cannot imagine why they think this is a good gift for an 11 month old, although I do appreciate the gesture. Ah, the things we parents do to protect our children.