Author: Dan

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Quarter Pounder With Noodles

What’s your million dollar idea? You know the one. The thing that occupies your mind when you’re scraping mangled receipts and Post-it note reminders out of a washing machine lint trap. (By the way, the inventors of Post-it notes worked at 3M until retirement…I find something awfully depressing about that).

Anyway, what I was getting at was this:

I can barely wrap my head around this. I can definitely wrap my stomach around it, but my head, not so much. That beauty is a Ramen Burger, and I call dibs. I’m bringing this back to the States, and I’m going to make a sensible, not-outlandish living as a Carnie, hopping from town to town, county fair to farm show, introducing America to something they didn’t know they loved.  I’ll make enough money to throw slices of fresh bread to the ducks, not that week-old stuff. That stuff is for the birds.

This past weekend our neighborhood was overtaken by food vendors, a lot of them, for the Azabu-Juban Noryo Festival. The streets filled up with Tokyo folk (Tokyoites? Tokyojin? Tolkeins?), creating a thick wall of people on every street, and picking up groceries meant redefining my personal comfort zone. But on the positive side, picking up groceries also meant stopping for grill pit fish, giant scallops swimming in a shell full of butter (or mayo, it’s hard to say, my eyeballs were salivating), potato chips on a stick (dibs again), and draft beer. Lovely stuff.

The Ramen burger can’t be that hard to make. It’s cooked ramen noodles, griddled into the shape of a bun. Then you throw in some roast pork, spring onion, bamboo shoots, cabbage, and a broth-inspired sauce (soy, miso, or tonkotsu – heavenly pork bone). Brilliant.

Oh, and that thing on the right is just some delicious potato topped with butter, mayo, salt, kimchi and corn. Whatever.

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Let Them Eat…

Where to begin?

I fear I may be taking this adorable travelogue down a dark, dark path.

Yes, Marie Antoinette is holding a giant bottle of placenta. No, it is not a mistranslation, they are actually selling placenta. Yes, I stood in the middle of Shibuya train station, one of Tokyo’s busiest, trying to wrap my head around the ad. No, you aren’t supposed to apply it to your skin so you will look younger. Yes, you are supposed to drink it, “it” being the placenta, an actual placenta being sold for human consumption, so your skin will look younger. No, if you send me $60 and your address, I will not walk out to my local health food store and buy you placenta and mail it to your house. Just kidding, yes, I will do that for you.

Perhaps there are additional questions? To be honest, I really don’t have too many answers, so let’s turn to the Web site of the good folks at Placenta-Pro, makers of “the world’s long awaited placenta elixir with 30,000 mg of ‘Horse-origin:'”

Q: So….

A: “Those who pursue health and beauty throughout the world have overwhelmingly praised the placenta.”

Q: What?

A: “Particularly because it is in a drinkable form, the fresh placenta components are easily absorbed and condition both body and skin health from within.”

Q: Right, but…

A: “PLACENTA-PRO 30,000 contains an extravagant 30,000 mg of 100% pure horse placenta extract.”

Q:  Everyone knows pig placenta is the way to go for softer skin. Are you trying to pull one one me?

A: “The fact that horses have high temperatures and delicate constitutions alleviates any concern about viruses or germs.”

Q: Oh, well that makes sense. I guess it’s true what they say. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s afterbirth ear. Where do placentas come from?

A: “Placentas come from horses raised in an excellent Kyrgyz environment.”

Q: I’m going to stop you right there.

A: “Guided by the government of the Kyrgyz Republic — contracts are drawn up with carefully selected farms in the rich natural surroundings for our supply of exceedingly nutrient-rich horse placentas.”

Q: We’re done here.

[There is a need for a few editor’s notes: 1) Placenta-Pro is not the maker of “The Placenta.” The Placenta might actually be made from pig-origin. I’m sorry to deceive. 2) I’m not making fun of another culture. I’m making fun of quacks. 3) A quick search of the Internet will show plenty of people have already addressed the great placenta debate. 4) Placenta-Pro 30,000 comes in orange.]

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Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu

The other, less prolific half here. Sorry, no adorable pictures this time. Just cold, cold, print.

Today was a bit of a milestone for me, in that I had to introduce myself to a room full of co-workers. In Japanese.

For those keeping score, it might seem odd that I’m just getting around to introducing myself to most of my co-workers. And you would be correct. For 2+ months, I have been floating around the office as, “that new guy who doesn’t look like any of us and doesn’t speak our language and what exactly is he doing here, well at least he doesn’t drink all the coffee,” (my words, I think).

My Japanese is not good. I’m not being humble. Sure, if you meet me, and you don’t speak Japanese, you might be wowed – or discomfited – by the swiftness with which I can order a draft beer. But that’s about it. Otherwise it’s a whole lot of mumbling and bumbling.

So here’s what I wanted to say, followed by what I was capable of saying:

Hi, I am Dan./Hi, I am Dan.

Pleased to meet you/Pleased to meet you.

Please excuse my accent. I’m sorry I can’t speak better Japanese./ I’m sorry. I cannot speak Japanese.

Unlike a lot of people my age, I’ve managed to stay in the same city for a number of years. It was about that time that I either made roots, or picked up and tried a new town, you know? I chose the latter, so here I am! You’ve been wonderful hosts so far. I’m so happy to be here./ I am from Washington, DC.

I work for —–. But beyond that, I really look forward to meeting all of you. You all seem like interesting people, and you obviously get along very well. Seriously, stop by my desk. We’ll go out and get a drink./I work for —–

Please treat me well./Please treat me well.

Oh by the way, how do I use all of the buttons on the toilet?/…..

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Where Is Pancakes House?

Sometimes a man just needs some pancakes.

We’ve been in Japan for three weeks, which really isn’t long enough to start getting cravings for American food. What have you gone three weeks without eating? Probably a lot of things. Probably most things.

But still, sometimes it’s nice to know that a comfort food is available to you. We’ve had trouble finding breakfast joints. Sure, onigiri is lovely in the morning, but once in a while I need pancakes and eggs.

Japan, being the space- and time-efficient place that it is, up and combined the two:

Okonomiyaki is often prepared on a hot grill at your table. A batter of eggs, flour, cabbage, and every fish and crustacean from the sea, okonomiyaki is basically a catch-all omelet, but sort of like a pancake, except when it’s like pizza. Phew.

Being the daring sorts that we are, we spotted a sign for an okonimiyaki restaurant and wandered up to its third floor location. Please take a moment to congratulate us. So far, unless I can see right into a restaurant from the ground floor, I don’t bother going in. I’m illiterate in the language, so who knows what I’ll get into. Call me a coward, but at least I won’t accidentally walk into an all-you-can-eat raw horse buffet.

But okonomiyaki! It is lovely and full of toppings. A sweetish BBQ sauce, shredded nori, scallions, bonito flakes (which dance around when exposed to heat), and mayonnaise.

I may have been the sort of person who once turned his nose to mayo, but now I’m on board. I guess Japan is giving me some perspective on what’s really important about my country. U-S-A! MAY-O-NNAISE!

With all the toppings and ingredients and foreign language (to me) and train tracks outside the window and the manga convention downstairs and the holy-cow-we’re-really-living-in-another-country-no-fooling, I noticed that okonomiyaki tasted surprisingly…familiar.

Not familiar like, “Oh, I had this at the Stop ‘N Save just the other day,” but rather, all the flavors just seemed to come together like something a boy from central PA is used to.

This, of course, is mayonnaise:

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A Man in Japan Named Dan

While the lovely Ang regales you with tales of embroidery floss and chicken chitlins, I’ve been stuck at my desk (which also serves as our dining room table, ironing board, craft bench, and La-Z-Boy). Someone has to bring home all those delicious chitlins.

But I hope to occasionally make an appearance here, offering to you the blog equivalent of “Gee, look at that!” I do not pretend to have any expertise in the latest of Tokyo awesomeness. I call it a good day if I can determine, when offered something, if I’m supposed eat it, wipe my hands with it, or attach it as a charm to my cellphone.

That said, Tokyo is in the future in every sense of the word, or at least in a few senses of the word. How many senses of the word are there? Hmm, philosophers to your battle stations! So perhaps you will be amused by what you see through my astigmatic eyes. Or perhaps not!

I realize my slovenly presence on this delightful, charming blog may be a bit jarring, but I promise to tuck in my shirt and run a comb through my hair before stepping through these doors.

First up, packaging:

One of the things I heard about Japan before I arrived was the excessive amount of packaging that is used. And so far, we’ve seen a lot of that to be true. Individually packaged bananas, bags and cup trays for a takeout coffee, etc. Now, as an American, I can’t take a stance of environmental righteousness. We have temperature-controlled outdoor stadiums. Still, a banana has packaging built right into it. It’s cool. Leave it be, Japan.

But packaging can also be brilliant. I start many mornings with onigiri, a triangle of rice about the size of a hockey puck, filled with fish, or vegetable, and then wrapped in nori (toasted seaweed, for the savages in the room). To keep the nori crisp and dry, the packaging prevents the rice from touching the nori until you open it, even though the nori is already wrapped around the rice. I won’t get in to the specifics because it will require a rudimentary understanding of the scientific method, which I don’t possess, but please take my word that it is awesome and the future.