Joe Tomei here. For this Funky Places Friday, we will go way way back to when life was simpler. I think this was the first restaurant I went to for lunch from my university, 20 years ago, in Bocca al Lupo. It is a sad fact that in Kumamoto, restaurants pop up and disappear with surprising frequency. I was told that Kumamoto people like new things, but in my old age, I'm appreciating things that stay the same.

The phrase "in Bocca al Lupo" is the Italian equivalent of 'break a leg' and means 'into the wolf's mouth', since one never wants to say "good luck" before someone goes on stage. The master has made trips to Italy to study cooking and take photographs. The lunch is usually a choice of 2 or 3 freshly made pasta dishes and I love his bacon and ginnan (ginko) pasta. There used to be parking across the street, but that is now a 7-11. However, there is coin parking just down the street.

One of the neat things about doing this is finding extra information, and I just discovered that the restaurant has it's own facebook page at
https://www.facebook.com/boccalupo.kumamoto/

All the Funky Friday places are on this map
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qUH94Bac7Hr939b7_8gtvebaJZffGRsX&usp=sharing
and if you have any places you'd like me to write about or places that have moved or gone out of business, please send me a message thru Kumamoto-i.