Table talk

Udon suki at Masa, which has become one of my favourite comfort places. It's a tiny place, so even though it's filled with small tables, they might as well be joined together, conversation-wise.

So, this brings up the question of just when to politely ignore the conversations around you and when it's okay to join in. I have joined in once when the man on the table next to me was talking about Osaka, and we ended up up having a direct conversation across our two tables. In practice, you can actually hear most conversations in the room if you tune in. On the other hand, the last time we were there, we could here the people on the next table talking about us (or more accurately about Liem eating gyoza), and we (or at least I) pretended to ignore them.

So, what do you do if you're squeezed in a restaurant and the people at the next table are talking about you, or about something of interest to you?