It definately pays to be a food-loving foreigner in Japan because you can go into a restaurant just a couple of times and they remember who you are. The latest incident with my husband takes the cake.

There’s an amazing pizzeria about 15 minutes from our house. They serve Neapolitan pizzas, as good as you could get in Italy. Unfortunately, it’s also always crowded, and it’s impossible to get in on weekends. On Saturday, however, we decided to try and get in as soon as it opened at noon, before we caught a movie.

We got there 10 minutes early and lined up to get in. Little did I know that this would be the last time, we’d have to do this. I knew my husband went there pretty regularly for lunch, but I don’t know that he thought of himself as a regular there. Apparently, he is because we were greeted with two glasses of champagne as soon as we ordered “to celebrate the new year.” When my husband paid, he found out that his glass of wine was on the house. The GM also gave us his card and told us to call him if we ever wanted to make a reservation even for weekend lunch. Because lunch is more expensive on weekends than on weekdays, he told us that he would provide “a lot of service” (code word for free stuff) if we came in on weekends.

Now, if I could only figure out how to get this kind of treatment on my own.