205.8 and the tea house where Japan spied on Pearl Harbor

It's called Natsunoya, the last remaining Japanese tea house banquet restaurant in Hawaii, and it IS in fact the building in which a Japanese Consulate worker drank beer and sipped tea and--using the owners' own telescope--spied on ship movements in Pearl Harbor in preparation for "the day that will live in infamy," when Imperial Japan launched its attack on America.

And that, while the most notorious, was probably the least important fact about Natsunoya (it means "summer house") yesterday when John and Jayna Spahn held a baby luau there for their one-year-old son, Brady.

Most important is the luau itself, the celebration of the first anniversary of the baby's birth, one of the most pervasive and authentic cultural traditions in the modern history of Hawaii.

There were about 500 of the Spahns' closest friends in attendance in a totally family affair, all bringing gifts or envelopes of checks or cash to help send young Brady on his way in life.

I was born in Hawaii, in a plantation hospital on the Big Island no less, but I was raised and worked in California, and then Washington State, before moving back in 1976, so I am irretrievably a "coast haole."

As a result, I don't go to as many baby luau as kama'aina do, and I regret it. There is graduation from high school, there are weddings, but the baby luau is as local as local can be, and it's always a privilege to be included.

So much for culcha! How about da grinds?

Well, it is important to know that when Natsunoya Tea House set up a gallery of photos in their website, the gallery consisted of FOOD.

The servings yesterday included agedashi tofu with Shiitake mushrooms, pork tonkatsu, miso salmon, shrimp and vegetable tempura, potato salad, white rice, noodles, baked chicken, tossed salad, and then Brady's banana cake with frosting to top it off.

I skipped the rice, went light on the noodles, avoided the banana splits and ice cream sundaes being whipped up in a corner, but fell hard for the pork tonkatsu with its tangy brown sauce. Hard as in six pieces, breaded and usually cut with a big dollop of fat still attached to the meat.

If you can face this sort of temptation, and still take off two-tenths of a pound from your weight, there is hope.