I found this super cute blog post where a guy took the idiom
オブラートに包む
And literally did just that.
It means to sugar-coat your words, but do check out the post to see what the literal Japanese means.
One of the phrase he uses is
ぶぶ漬けでもどうですか?, which he says is an expression that means “return home quickly,” but I’m totally unfamiliar with that phrase. Does anyone know the context in which it is used?
It’s an expression from Kyoto. ぶぶ漬け is a meal (it’s usually called お茶漬け in other places, as far as I know). That expression is used when someone is staying way too long at your place, as in, it’s actually time for you to eat, so, on the surface, you ask them if they want to join. They are supposed to get the clue and leave.
It’s more like the tale of the Dog with Two Bones - the moral being if you get greedy and try for both, you will get neither. I can’t think of an English idiom that covers that particular meaning off the top of my head.
“You can’t have you cake and eat it too” is more like “you can only have one or the other”.