Sake Birthday

I was in the Sake in downtown Portsmouth this past week. Sake is the "other" Portsmouth Japanese restaurant. Most people think of Sakura when the subject comes up. Sake is located on Congress Street right near the corner of Middle Street. We had a good meal of sushi (for seven of us) and the environment was nice with okay service (we had to ask for plates for the platters of sushi, they had no idea what Dewar's scotch was). But the purpose of this post is not to review the restaurant, but to point out what will soon become THE PORTSMOUTH BIRTHDAY EXPERIENCE.

We had brought a cake with us because one of our party was celebrating a birthday and they didn't have any cakes at the restaurant. It was handed to the maitre de (anybody got that in Japanese?) with the request to "do something" for the celebrant.

We were sitting at the table, the plates had just been cleared when all of a sudden, the music came up real loud (I mean REAL loud) with the Happy Birthday Song being sung. However, it wasn't just your plain vanilla version. Though the song was in English, the singers had Japanese accents! I mean, loud Happy Birthday Japanese accents.

They brought in the cake, with candles on it, but nobody had to sing. Even if you had sung, it wouldn't have been heard. Besides, we couldn't sing because we were laughing so hard.

I recommend you try it.