The camera on the iPhone 3G is total crap and doesn’t do macro. You can hardly make out the writing on this Royal Host (a family restaurant in Japan) menu photo but it says that Marilyn Monroe ate this same Onion Soup at the first Royal Host restaurant in Japan in 1954. I guess back then either Royal Host was considered a high class restaurant or there were no other places serving western food. According to Wikipedia Japan the first Royal Host was opened in Fukuoka in 1954. Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio went there on their Honeymoon! She liked it so much she visited the shop 3 days in a row and ordered it every time. Can you believe that? I mean you would think that the most famous couple of their time would go somewhere more high class, right? Or maybe they just didn’t like Japanese food. Anyways, this gives me a good reason to go to Fukuoka. Maybe when I get married I can add this to my places to go on my honeymoon too.
Here’s a screengrab from a TV program showing the couple at Royal Host and proving that it is indeed fact and not some marketing BS.
Category: Food
You can get bento style soba (buckwheat noodles) at any convenience store in Japan. Sometimes, it comes with a tiny egg. There’s not much more I can add to this topic except that I ate the soba and it was pretty awful. Around the block from where I live there’s a fairly decent soba shop built into a house and sometimes there’s a long line of people waiting to get it. I’ve eaten there several times already and while the noodles are very good they are also kind of expensive. Tempura soba will cost you about ¥1950.
In other news, the RSS and book purge have failed. I’ve already added 25 new feeds into Google Reader and in less than a week I’ve accumulated 10 new books!!! But these were really good books!! I could not resist! Well, to be honest there were only 4 physical books, the other 6 were downloadable audio books so it does count as clutter, right?
If you don’t count pasta there are basically two varieties of noodle dishes in Japan. Japanese noodles like udon and soba, and Chinese noodles like ramen. Another type of Chinese noodle, relatively unknown outside Japan, is called “Nagasaki Chanpon” because it originated in Nagasaki but was created by a Chinese restaurant owner as a healthy cheap meal for Chinese students. Whether this means it is a Japanese food or Chinese food is debatable. Kind of like although Pizza is considered an Italian food it was actually created in NY’s little Italy. Anyways, I don’t eat ramen that much because of all the animal fat grease balls floating in the soup. And udon and soba are a bit boring. However, I really like Nagasaki Chanpon. It’s almost all vegetables and the soup is not oily or too salty. The noodle tastes like ramen but is fatter and lighter. The best way to eat Chanpon is with lots of pepper. This small restaurant is near Toranomon in central Tokyo and is one of the more genuine Chanpon places I’ve been to. If you can’t get to this place or Nagasaki to taste the real thing, you can always go to Ringer Hut. They’re like a fast food Nagasaki Chanpon chain restaurant and you can find them all over.
In Japan, there are “hamburgers” ハンバーガー and “hamburgs” ハンバーグ, they are two different things. The first is the kind you find in a bun, like Bic Macs and Whoppers. The latter doesn’t really exist in North America, as far as I know, and is basically the meat part on a plate with some kind of demi-glass sauce served with rice or bread. The Hamburg steak is a staple for Japanese kids and can be found in just about any western style restaurant in this country. I learned this difference a long time ago when I first visited a Bikkuri Donkey family restaurant whose name means “Surprised Donkey.” The chain originated from Iwate prefecture and is famous for their big wooden menus (below) and wooden plates. It’s also one of the cheapest places to eat which is why it’s popular with families on a fixed income. I had my favorite Pine-burg Dish (above) for less than ¥600. You won’t see Bikkuri Donkey in Shibuya or Shinjuku. Usually, they are situated along major roads in the suburbs.
I stopped eating at Bikkuri Donkey years ago mainly because I don’t like family restaurants but also because someone told me the hamburgers were made from worms which is why the prices are so cheap. I doubt if that’s true but the image stuck in my head.
This dessert is for Eddie. It’s Rabbit Pudding but I don’t think there is any kind of rabbit meat in it. ¥350 is a bit much for some fruit with sugar, but you get to keep that nice little cup.
If you thought my photos of Mega Mac were disgusting, take a look at these. Courtesy of Takeshi FUKUDA’s TaWaGoTo Apparently, some guys were bored in a meeting and decided to build a Mega Mac tower. I can’t imagine anyone eating that.
Yesterday was Setsubun 節分 and so I took time out from working on the blog and made a sushi roll. Well, actually some friends made it for me and I just ate it. EHoMaki 恵方巻き is what they call the uncut sushi roll that you eat while facing the predetermined direction from which the god of the new year enters. You are supposed to pray for good luck and not speak until finishing the entire roll. EHoMaki literally means “lucky direction roll.” This year’s direction was NNW. I had a compass on hand to make sure I was facing the right way.
This rolled sushi was very delicious, but I still wonder what the one made of bread would taste like. Afterwards, I ate a bunch of soybeans. This is another Setsubun tradition where you have to eat the same number of beans as your age. They have no taste.
As for the blog, some of you may have noticed that the URLs are now more descriptive and not just index numbers. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but was trying to figure out an easy way to rename 1000+ filenames without losing my ranking in search engines. In the end, I created new files for each entry and added a script which queried the database for the new URL and did a 301 redirect in the headers of all the old files. Movabletype already created an entry basename automatically in the database which I could use in the URL, but some of the basenames were cut off or made no sense so I had to check each one. I have a major headache from this tedious task. Also, I made a mistake in one of my SQL statements which ended up throwing a whole pile of errors, filling up the error log and crashing the server. You might have noticed that too. Anyway, all is fixed now and old links should to this site should still work. If you find anything broken please let me know.
More delicacies from Hong Kong (1) Duck tongue. I can’t describe the taste but it didn’t taste like duck (2) Mango pudding with coconut ice cream. Yum.
This morning, I got out of the house and drove to Aburatsubo Marina at the far end of Miura peninsula. A special maguro party was organized by a local Yacht club and Samba team who are friends of friends. About 100 people showed up to watch a professional tuna chef (there’s a special name but I forgot it) chop up a 46kg fresh tuna for us to devour. Maguro is pretty famous in this port city and I’ve been here many times before to have a maguro-don (see this post). An average Japanese person consumes about 1kg of maguro per year and today each one of us could eat up to 400grams. That’s almost half a year’s worth! This was a mebachi tuna. It’s named that because of its relatively large eyes. I touched the eye and it felt like a nike air max sole cushion except softer and wetter.
I’ll let you in on a little secret. I only blog about food when I have nothing else of interest. Not being much of a food person, in other words I get bored talking about food beyond “What do you feel like eating?”, I said that I would never post photos of food here. But now it’s too late and I have a category about food. Blogging about food is a copout, don’t you think? At least for me anyways. It requires no effort beyond going to the restaurant and taking photos and writing about how delicious it was etc. But for some reason beyond my comprehension most normal people like looking at pictures of food and commenting about it. So here are some photos of meat that I took tonight. After work, I followed a few colleagues to a rather obscure yakinuku restaurant in Uguisudani called Uguisudani-en 鶯谷園. It was a bland looking place and one would normally have walked by it in favor of a more fashionable restaurant. But the meat was exceptional and very good (1) The specialty was this filet garlic steak, something that you don’t find often in yakiniku (2) Check out how wicked this chunk of garlic is. Would you eat it?
You only need to cook the meat for a few seconds. Medium-rare is best.
Did this post stimulate you in anyway? Or would you prefer photos of my roadster? :-)
The famous katsu-sand from Mansei. Loaded with greasy goodness. Mmmmmm. Took this photo more than a month ago but just noticed it while cleaning out my iPhoto library. The katsu-sand (cutlet sandwich) is a Japanese invention. I don’t think I’ve ever see them in other countries.
These cookies are made from “okara.” The crud left over when making Tofu. Kind of like sawdust except okara is edible. You don’t have to feel guilty about eating these cookies cause they’re good for you. But they’re hard as a rock and can break your tooth if you’re not careful. Dip them in coffee to soften them up.
Unrelated: I was just looking at the number of posts per category in the navigation for this site (top left) and noticed that my “Friends” category had the fewest posts. This could either mean I don’t blog about my friends much because I respect their privacy OR that I don’t have any friends. l suspect it is the latter. Time to start looking for a cat? :-(
Deep fried pork cutlets, aka “tonkatsu” とんかつ, is one of those western style foods that’s become a mainstay for many Japanese. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered tonkatsu is any Japanese restaurant in Canada although it’s been ages since I’ve been back to Canada so I guess you can find anything there now. Tonkatsu is easy to eat because it’s full of delicious fat deep fried in more fat covered in sauce which tastes good. I like tonkatsu but try to stay away from it as much as possible. Eat a pig, become a pig. There are many tonkatsu chains but one of the most famous and traditional ones is Maisen まい泉. You may have seen their sandwiches being sold in department stores. Maisen has their main restaurant in the backstreets of Omotesando. It’s a classic shop with ’60s style retro decor similar to the Hotel Okura. Believe it or not, this was actually my first time to visit the place in all the years I’ve been in Japan.
Maisen tonkatsu is different from other tonkatsu because the meat is extremely soft. It’s advertised that you can cut the meat with your chopsticks. The meat is very tender and looks like it’s been pulverized and beaten a thousand times. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of it but it looks kind of like spam rather than a pork cutlet. Maisen was pretty good, but I still think this one in Asakusa was the best tonkatsu I’ve ever eaten. Kimukatsu is also pretty good.
I’ve known lots of foreigners in Japan that don’t speak any Japanese, but I don’t think I’ve ever met a foreigner who lived in Japan and didn’t know how to order beer or alcohol. 大ジョッキ “daijokki” which means the “largest glass of draft beer” is one of the first words people remember after “ohayo” and “arigato.” Most foreigners who come to Japan are drunks. At least the ones I used to know ;-)
Another word is チューハイ chū-hi, which is usually the cheapest non-beer alcoholic drink in most izakayas. Chū-hi is short for “shōchū highball” and is a mix of shōchū and lemony soda water. 焼酎 Shōchū is a kind of distilled alchohol like whisky except a bit weaker. It’s used as a mixer in many drinks. As far as I know there’s no equivalent to chū-hi in western bars but I guess a vodka/gin and tonic would be closest. You can find many varieties of chū-hi like ume-hi, grapefruit-hi, orange-hi, apple-hi, peach-hi etc where basically they mix your favorite fruit/soft drink with shōchū. Generally, people who don’t like beer will order one of these types of drinks, although the alcoholic content varies dramatically from place to place.
When I worked in an izakaya I used to make chū-his all night. The shōchū came in these big huge industrial sized plastic kegs that weighed a ton. I was instructed to put only a little bit of shōchū into each drink, and less if the patrons were women. I was generous though and would fill the shōchū up to half the glass. The owner eventually caught on as customers were getting drunk faster than normal so they stopped letting me make them. Because the shops can control the amount of alcohol put into the drinks, chū-hi have the largest profit margin over any other item. At cheap izakayas, which cater to university students (more like family restaurants really), they use the lowest quality shōchū and put only a few drops into each drink. You have to drink about 10 of them before you can get even slightly drunk. At a proper izakaya, chū-hi will have a respectable amount of higher quality shōchū. You can distinguish the cheap izakayas from the good ones because the cheap places usually have pictures on plastic menus. Easy to clean in case you spill a drink or vomit on them.
If you want to enjoy a chū-hi it’s best to just get it from a can. The alcoholic content is usually higher and consistent. They have many different varieties that you can find in most convenient stores, the latest of which is called AWA’s from Suntory. It’s foamy like beer. Awa 泡 means bubbles or foam.
If you ever order sushi-to-go, this is what it will look like. Generally, people will call a nearby sushi restaurant in advance because it takes time for the chef to prepare it all, especially if it’s a big order. And then you go there to pick it up. Let me tell you that these two plates (what do you call those things?) were heavy as hell and carrying them a kilometre home was exhausting. Don’t do this in the summer cause the sushi will get all warm and yucky..
I’m completely exhausted. This past weekend, I went up to Gunma and Tochigi. I drove over 700 kilometres and took 600+ photos. As a result I haven’t gotten much sleep and I’m in a cranky mood. On top of that, I’m doing a complete hardware upgrade/overhaul of my computer systems and home network. It’s taking ages and while reformating/reinstalling Mac OSX I couldn’t find my image editing software, so I haven’t been able to do any blog posts. I’m afraid I’ll have to go to a store and actually buy software!! Well, I did manage to upload these photos to wet your appetite. They are grasshoppers or “inago” as they are called in Japanese. Yes, in Japan they EAT BUGS TOO! OMG! Sometimes, the inago are crunchy when they are deep fried, like those mini shrimps that stare at you when you bite their heads off, but usually the locals like their inago slightly juicy. On the sign, it says they’re full of calcium. I bought a pack and ate them for lunch today. Put some inago between two slices of whole-wheat bread with lettuce and some low-fat cheese. Yummy.
There’s always a long line to buy a taiyaki at this taiyaki stand at the end of Shimotakaido’s shopping street. Taiyaki is the most common of the anko (sweet bean paste) filled Japanese snacks. It’s like a fish shaped waffle filled with anko. For ¥100 these taiyaki were relatively big in size and not too sweet. Most foreigners don’t like the taste of anko although if you live here long enough you develop a liking for it. Personally, I think if they filled these things with hot apple sauce or hazel-nut chocolate it would be really yummy. But I don’t think that will happen any time soon.
Help!! I’ve been seduced by the dark side of the force! Actually, Mega Mac is not so mega but still pretty gross at 754kcals. Yikes! It’s really just 2 Big Macs minus the bun of one. Yet it’s been selling out like crazy and the Japanese are lining up to get them. What gives? In Shimokitazawa, there’s a crepe stand that sells a natto-banana-whipped-cream crepe. In case you don’t know, natto is stinky fermented soy bean that smells nasty. Anyways, it’s their best selling crepe and there’s always a line in front of that stand. Similarly, the Mega Mac is kind of disgusting and so people want to eat one just so they can say they did. That’s why I did!
Setsubun 節分, which is a festival that celebrates the start of spring according to the Japanese lunar calendar, is coming up Feb. 3rd. Beside throwing beans around the house and screaming, another tradition is to eat an uncut sushi roll or maki-sushi 巻寿司 facing some predetermined compass direction. Most convenience stores will begin to sell the uncut ones on that day, sans compass. At Vie de France (a bread shop) they were taking preorders for sushi-rolls made with white bread instead of rice. It looks like it will taste very dry. I heard that there are other variations like maki-sushi made of sweets or fruit. Perhaps Krispykreme should make a glazed one?
The waist is getting bigger. I’ve been lucky (or unlucky) to have lots of great local dim sum at lunchtime. This was the third time since I came and I’m not tired of it yet. Especially good are the pork buns and steamed vegetables. Also the barbequed chicken and mini egg tarts.
(1) On Monday night, I meet up with Andy and we had good conversation over tan-tan noodles and these sweet onion buns. Very delicious (2) Last night, the guys from work took us out for some interesting fusion cuisine, dishes like grapefruit and shrimp salad, noodle and chicken wings, and a bunch of other stuff which I don’t know the names of. For dessert, we had lychee ice cream covered in some kind of wine. Mmmmmm..
Otokomae means manly or handsome. That’s the new way of marketing tofu. At the supermarket this morning, I had a good laugh at the hip names for these tofu. I don’t think I can translate them accurately but maybe someone else will take a stab at it. The name of the one above is a bit cut off. It’s called 風に吹かれて豆腐屋ジョニー. The company that makes these tofus is apparently a new venture business with a really funky website: 男前豆腐屋 The Symbol of Japan. Check it out.
Shimokitazawa has its own beer. Isn’t that cool? Even Shinjuku and Shibuya don’t have beers named after them. Shimokitazawa also has it’s own steak sauce which, by the way, is very good and tastes better than A1 or HP. It’s the only sauce I use. You can find this beer and the Shimokitazawa steak sauce at Kaldi. The beer is called “Shimokitazawa Tengu” beer. A Tengu is a mythic Japanese creature, kind of like Bigfoot. It’s tall, has a long nose, red face and speaks an incomprehensible language. Although the folklore about Tengu is very detailed some people believe Tengu were actually ship-wrecked western sailors who were sunburnt, had long western noses and spoke maybe English or Portugese. I wish I could remember where I read that…
Bought these cakes for a pregnant friend of mine. They looked soo good but I did not eat any of them. Not even a small taste. Is that will power or what? But after I finish my fast, I’m definitely gonna go get one of those Caramel Chocolat ones (right photo). The GR doesn’t have a preset for taking pictures of food but the photo on left looks soo delicious..mmmmm…can you tell I’m craving right now?
The recipe for this nabe is the same one Genghis Khan and his Mongol warriors used for their yakusen nabe. The secret ingredients of this hotpot gave them super-natural strength to defeat the enemy on the battlefield. It was perfected by the Taiwanese (?) and now you can have it in Japan. All this according to the guy at Taiwan Kaisen. No doubt these facts are a bit exaggerated for marketing but the nabe was good and made me feel tingling inside. Almost like I wanted to grab an axe and hack some barbarians to little pieces. Lots of different kinds of plants, roots, wolfberries and other stuff that ancient Chinese people say are good for you. The restaurant is on the 2nd floor of ADK Shochiku Square just down the street from the Kabuki Theatre. The building has a nice cafe on the first floor (see below)
