CONTRIBUTED BY KELLY GARCIA

This past Friday I went on an adventure. My friend Rene and I went out to dinner. In Naha. Yes friends, in Naha. I RARELY make it down that far south any more, especially not at night, so for me it was an event. Like Laura Ingills Wilder making a trip into town.

As our 6pm meeting time approached my anticipation for the evening grew. Hmmm…what to wear. A quick search though my closet: t-shirts, sweats, pants that are too big, pants that are too small, maternity blouses. My evening wear seems to have dwindled in my three years on the island. Finally I produced a Uniqlo dress (black) and some leggings (also black). Black never loses its cool factor does it? I threw on a long silver necklace and headed out the door to Rene’s place.

Rene opened the door. Was she in “night on the town black”? Of course not. She was looking fly in her orange top and big gold 80s rapper earrings. That girl...always one beat ahead. She offered to drive (yeah!) and we began our hour and a half trek to Naha. Yes, it was a long, long drive. But gave us the chance to catch up. Just when I was getting to the point where I began to wonder if we’d have anything left to talk about at the restaurant, we were there. Ah! Naha. Bright lights big city! Funny, when I first moved to Okinawa from Manhattan, Naha seemed almost quaint. But no longer. Now its shines before me like the picture of sophistication!  A live music club here. A French restaurant there. Food smells wafting into the street. Lovin' it.

We parked in a pay parking lot across the street from a place called 4th Street Café, which Rene, my city smart guru, says is a music bar popular with Americans. Below it was an organic pasta restaurant. It looked cute; however, it wasn't our destination. We rounded the corner instead and stopped in front of a tiny little place with perhaps 7 small tables. Vines and greenery grew up the façade and toward the sign glowing yellow under a couple of warm lights:  Tavola Calda e Bar ARRANCIA

What followed was simply a lovely evening of good food, good wine and great company. Fitting of an Italian restaurant, no? And as tends to be the case for me when I really like a place, I forget to take pictures of it for the blog. So, while we ordered several different items, I only remembered to take a photo of one of them, the croquette.

But, let me just give you a brief summary of our food experience. We ordered our food piece-meal, a couple items here a couple items there, and shared everything, including our entrees. If you go here I’d recommend ordering similarly. You can try out more foods that way and enjoy the leisurely pace of the meal as dish after dish appears at your table like a little surprise treat.  Imagine you are presented with this menu...what would you choose?  Actually, click here to get a better look, with prices and pics of menu options and wine list:  MENU

Here's what we got:  First a carafe of the house red, which served probably about four small glasses.  Also bread with olive oil.  We ordered two of the delicious, gooey cheese-filled rice croquettes.  The rice tasted like Spanish rice.  Yum.  We also ordered the antipasti plate, which had olives, prosciutto, octopus and, I think, a bean salad.  No, it was couscous.  It was fluffy and flavorful couscous.  Then we ordered again.  Rene got one huge oyster, which was a special that day.  It must have been wonderful because Rene brought up what a surprising delicious burst of flavor it contained a couple of times throughout our meal.  Turns out they had sprinkled it with a couple of grains of pink pepper.  The thing that I loved was the caprese salad - just a simple salad of tomato and mozzarella.  But it wasn't the tomato that stood out to me, or the cheese.  It was the salt of all things.  The salt was perfectly delicious.

We kept ordering.  Next came the pasta.  We chose the blue cheese penne.  While we agreed that we preferred the blue cheese sauce at Mintama's (somewhat thicker and creamier), why be picky, it was delicious.  Oh, and we shared the homemade herb sausage.  I kept trying to place why it tasted to familiar to me and then I remembered.  It tasted just like Irish sausage, which, if you've ever had it is slightly bread-y and fantastic.  Finally, came the coffee.  I didn't order desert, I think there was only an ice cream, which I wasn't in the mood for.  But the coffee (cappuccino) was a nice finishing note.

We paid up and the bill came up to a little over 7,000 yen total.  And the parking was 900 yen.  You could probably park a lot cheaper, but this was just a convenient spot.  Oh, and I spotted these cool wine stoppers on the way out and got one. And below a picture of some of the wines they offer. 

On the way back, Rene pointed out a bunch of other neat Naha restaurants - the Chinese place that reminds her of LA, the Russian joint, a hip looking French restaurant.  We made it a goal to try to make it down once a month.  We'll see how it goes.  But I'll keep you posted.

HOURS and INFO:

Open 5:30pm - midnight  CLOSED Sundays and holidays

098-862-1602 (We made reservations. They speak English.)

www.arancia-okinawa.com

DIRECTIONS:

Take 58 south.  Way south, past Kinser, almost to where you would turn left to that big crosswalk and prefectural office on Kokusai Street.  Keep an eye out on your left for the billboard that has two guys doing the thumbs up sign. It's two streets before the Kumoji intersection (the one that goes to Kokusai Street and that big prefectural offic building.)  TURN LEFT at the thumbs up sign.  You'll see the 4th Street Cafe on your left and parking across the street from it.  You can park there.  (Pay when you leave.)  Walk towards the 4th Street Cafe, around the corner from it (walking away from 58/toward Kokusai) is Arancia.  It's covered in vines.