digitalsidhe

Before going out to the restaurant, I looked on a fairly good online Japanese dictionary to see what "sasa" means in Japanese. It turns out, it can be a synonym for alcohol or sake — basically, take the first syllable of "sake" and reduplicate it. "Aha!" I figured, "good name for an izakaya."

However, Japanese is chock full of homophones. So the word "sasa" can also mean "small, little" or "bamboo grass" or "trivial".

When we got there, we noticed that there was a big, calligraphed kanji set as a sort of "seal" or emblem above the door. I couldn't recognize it, but they also had it on their cards, so I took one home to look up later.

Since the place mostly specialized in small plates, though, feyandstrange had the brainwave that it might be the "small" meaning. Me personally, I'd had some feeling that it might be a double meaning. So maybe, both "alcohol" and "small (plates)"?

But then this morning I looked up the kanji. Would you believe, it's the one that means "bamboo grass"?

I am so disappointed.

(For those who don't speak Lang Belta, by the way, in Lang Belta the word "sasa" is a verb meaning "to know". "Mi sasa" is "I know.")