Around the corner and into Flinders Lane, where I thought I'd pay a visit to Tonkatsu Joshu as a kind of birthday lunch (they're not open on Sundays, so this is all I could do). But it was newspapered up, with signs saying "organic bakery opening soon". My heart fell through the floor. This was the entire reason I'd come into the CBD.

Dazed, confused and lost, I took refuge across the street in Missing Link while I collected myself. But even that wasn't right. The new Cornelius album was going for $40. Not the usual $34-$36 spanking we've grudgingly come to accept for imported CDs, but $40. For a little while, it seemed as if everything was going horribly, horribly wrong.

I looked on the door to see if they'd left a note, and a small piece of paper said that they're moving to Springvale. Once they've found somewhere, it'll be mentioned on their website. I felt a lot better knowing they'd be back, somewhere, some day. But now I had to eat. Down the other end of Degraves St (near Flinders St) were a few places that opened last year, including another Japanese place called Hako. I'd never eaten there, because it seemed so spectacularly disloyal to have come so far, so close, and not eat at my favourite old place. Still, I had no choice this time. They played soothing old music that might've been by Sergio Mendez or somebody similar, and it was all nice and wooden inside. As I ate, a girl came in to buy her usual sushi. "we don't have it today, sorry." To her credit, she decided to order something else, with some assistance. Perhaps now there's one more person out there who'll think of Japanese food as something more than sushi...

...but then, I'm no better. I can't help ordering Katsu Curry, or Katsu Don in preference to other things. For science, you understand. Qualitative comparisons. So far, I haven't been able to find anything to beat Tonkatsu Joshu.