First, Crown Princess Masako feasted on classy Mexican fare from a 13-dish special menu in her honor. Then it was roast duck and shark's fin soup at a top Chinese eatery. A month later, she enjoyed a sumptuous repast at a French restaurant where the course featured exquisite black truffles.
The troubled Crown Princess has been eating like royalty in recent months — and getting pilloried in the tabloid press for violating the image of Imperial austerity by living the high life in public.
The sightings, documented in paparazzi-style photos in the country's freewheeling news magazines, have compounded the impression the Harvard-educated Crown Princess — who regularly skips official events because of an unspecified nervous disorder — is taking her palace obligations too lightly.
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