My first-time experiences at Starbucks and D&D

The first Starbucks in my life I ever went to was in New York City while traveling with my wife. That was before Starbucks had even arrived in Japan, but we both knew about this newly reputed coffee shop chain, so we decided to give it a try.

We walked in and got in line at the counter. The menu was on the wall above the counter, but I couldn’t figure out what was written there at all.

Now we are familiar with Caffe Latte, Caffe Macchiato, Frappuccino, and so on, but we learned these terms at Starbucks after it entered Japan.

So, at the time, I knew nothing about that.

“What language is this?”, I thought. Though I didn’t care what language it was, I couldn’t make out what the beverages were like, which was the problem.

Then my turn came, and I said, stammering:

“Um, Today's Special, please. “

Because those were the only words I could understand on the menu. I don’t remember what and how my wife ordered. That is a fond memory now.

During the same trip, we visited Dean & Deluca for the first time in New York City.

At the time, we couldn’t find Dean & Deluca in Japan, so I didn’t know of the shop, but my wife has heard of it, and she wanted to go get something from there.

The next day I went there again by myself to buy some salad for our light dinner in the hotel room.

I chose one type of salad and had it wrapped. The waiter then asked me which dressing I wanted. I asked him back, “What kinds do you have?”

He mentioned three different dressings, none of which I could hear. I asked again but still could not understand what he said.

I was expecting that he would say “French”, “Thousand Island”, “Caesar” or something like that which I usually get in Japan.

I thought the names of the dressings might be completely different from those in Japan, or there were no such dressings that were sold in Japan.

Anyway, it would be no use asking him the third time. I was desperate, so I gave up and spoke:

“Well, I’ll take the first one.”

Then I went back to the hotel room and had the salad with my wife. It tasted like nothing we'd ever had before.

I am still wondering what the dressing’s name was and what the other two tasted like.

Those were my first-time experiences at Starbucks and Dean & Deluca. Now we have both in many locations around Japan.