Food

by

Name That Sushi, Updated

As much as I’d like to admit I ate sea urchin vulva, spoppy, that’s not quite right.  Though, my dad’s guess of yellow-crunchy-stuff is pretty much spot-on for most things I eat here.

I can’t remember all the details from my lunch at Vegetable Sushi Potager, probably because I ate those little niblets quickly.  Here is what I do know, from left to right:

1. OK, rough start, I don’t remember this one.  It was a roll of something vegetable-y. Then gobo, aka burdock with ume sauce; white asparagus; stuffed teeny tiny tomato; and sweet potato mush with apple on black rice.

2. Curry with tomato; grilled erengi mushrooms; carrot puree; grilled leek-like negi; and tomato with mozzorella and roasted red pepper sauce.

Yum?  Yum.

******

Can you name that sushi?

A special prize to anyone who can get all 10 right.  But I’m pretty sure you can’t.  Mwaa ha ha…

by

Murder Pie

One of the reasons I love blueberry pie — it always looks like something went terribly wrong…

Blueberry Murder might make a good name for my pie shop.

These are from Pie Night at Chef Miri’s.  That one hiding in the back?  Chocolate Banana Cream.  It sort of has a deep-dish thing going on, which is a very good idea.

by

Valentine Sweets

In Japan, it is a Valentine’s Day custom for women to give men chocolates. I don’t even love chocolate that much, and I feel cheated.

You are supposed to give your Valentine handmade chocolates and reserve the store-bought stuff for friends and coworkers, but I saw these and couldn’t resist:

Highball-filled chocolates. Dan called them whiskey Gushers. Eeew. Or, ooooh?

I’m looking forward to White Day, the holiday on March 14th when men reciprocate. According to trusty Wikipedia, I can expect jewelry, white chocolate, or marshmallows.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Update – I just found this.  Totally eeew.

by

An Afternoon Stroll

On Saturday Dan and I took a stroll to Nippori in search of Yanaka Ginza.  We recently purchased a new camera and thought the quaint shopping street would be perfect for some practice shots.

But first, no afternoon stroll through Tokyo can begin without ramen:

We didn’t even make it to the train station before this stop, since this ramen-ya is in our neighborhood.  Dangerous, I know.  B1F, 1-7-9 Azabu Juban, Minato-ku  博多チムそば 麻布十番店、〒106-0045 東京都港区麻布十番１丁目７−９

On to Yanaka Ginza.  Well, almost.  To reach Yanaka Ginza we had to take the train to the JR Nippori station, which is also the home of Fabric Town:

Does anyone remember Cheapo in Minneapolis?  Oh, the hours I spent trying to look interested in used CDs while Dan click-clicked his way through new arrivals.  Apparently it’s payback time.  (You can find more info on Textile Heaven here.)  Only one hour was lost, and then it was back to our mission…

We got a little turned around, and eventually found our way across the train tracks via tunnel.  I sort of love/hate it when I’m in one of these tunnels and the train passes overhead.  Popping out the other side, we noticed people were gathering:

We’d stumbled upon Fujimizaka (meaning Fuji view slope), and joined just in time to watch the sun set over the city.  Everyone was gathered along a road that climbed up a steep hill (apparently some with better cameras than us).  If you are like me and need a little help, Fuji-san was just about here:

Finally, on with our quest.  We were looking for Yanaka Ginza, a small shopping street in northeastern Tokyo that is famous for maintaining the feel of Shitamachi, the traditional and lower class part of Edo which housed merchants and artisans in the marshy (read: humid and stinky) low part of the city.  Most of Shitamachi is gone, due to fires and wars over the years, but a few areas of Tokyo still do it right.  After some iPhone-led zig-zagging through neighborhoods, we finally arrived… and forgot to take photos.

Believe me though, it’s great.  We bought sencha 煎茶, stood in line for grilled meats, and wandered from shop window to cafe menu.  On our way home, we passed a small shrine tucked along the road:

A nice end to a lovely winter day.

by

Feeling Toasty

I’d like to take you along on a little journey… to buy a toaster.  In Japan, purchasing an electronic appliance is no small feat:

And this was just the toaster side of the aisle.  Ovens, ranges, and fish broilers had their own sections.  Dan and I had initially planed to purchase an oven — after my stories of pie-woe, we were urged by many to stop whining go out and get one for ourselves.  But it quickly became clear that our apartment didn’t have space for the huge “counter top” oven/steamer/grill/microwave robot contraptions that were out there. (If you need a reminder, you can see photos of our tiny apartment here.)  And so, back to the toasters.

I was amused by all of the options.  They had single-slice mini toasters, double-decker toasters, toasters shaped especially for pizzas, toasters in colors to match your teapot, high- or low-tech.

This one is advertising a touch screen computer panel, but I was more interested in the panda cake it claims it can make.

This toaster would have been perfect for one of my old roommates… you know who you are, Carb King.  “What’s for dinner tonight?  Toast? Pizza? Baked cheese? Toast?”

We settled on this beauty simply because it was big (4 slices!) and had easy-to-interpret controls.  Maybe it’s not quite right for an overstuffed apple pie, but it could probably manage a few tarte aux pommes.

Or an open-faced avocado and cheese sandwich.  Since bringing this new friend home, I’ve been eating toast for approximately 2.8 meals a day.  Don’t judge.

by

Mmmm.

In the aftermath of my musings on cold-weather warmer-uppers, I found this recipe for nabe.  I haven’t tried it yet myself (only because I don’t have a suitable pot).  Anyone else willing to try it out and tell me how it goes?

If I were to make this, I think I’d chose potatoes from Group A, fish chunks, shrimp and mussels for meat, leeks (if I could find them) or a yellow onion from Group B, and all sorts of mushrooms, though especially shiitake and enoki.  Then some tofu.  From Group C I’d pick cabbage and top it off with spinach.  And I’d definitely add ramen noodles at the end.  Duh.

Can’t wait to hear what you try!

by

Cold Weather Firsts

It has been chilly here in Tokyo.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to complain about the cold — since it is currently 21 degrees F (-6 degrees C) and snowing at my parents’ house in Minneapolis, and that’s after, according to my dad, “it had warmed up overnight.”

Here is the forecast for Tokyo this week:

Fear not, Americans — this is Celsius.  OK, so maybe it is not that cold…

That’s more like it.

But my parents house in Minneapolis is cozy, and my apartment in Tokyo is not.  The building is poorly insulated and my curtains sway with the breeze, get my draft drift?  50 degrees F (10 degrees C) feels chilly when you are inside.  I bought a pair of legwarmers and actually wear them.  And not ironically.

A drafty chill is the norm around Tokyo during the winter months, but there are plenty of other ways to keep warm.  This weekend I got to try a few for the first time.

Nabe 鍋 is a traditional winter dish, a one-pot soup or stew that cooks right at the table and is shared with friends or family.  Perhaps a little humble and unassuming, this soup pot of friendship warmed me right to the core.  You get to watch the broth bubble and then poke and pick out your favorite bits.  It was delightful.  Ours featured spicy sauce and soy milk, tantan tonyu nabe 担担豆乳鍋.  I probably just made-up that word, but it doesn’t matter because the soup was delicious.  Sorry for the poor cellphone photo – I was too excited to take the time to get a real camera.

My other cold weather first this weekend was to cuddle under a kotatsu 炬燵, a small table with a heating unit underneath that you cover with a heavy blanket.  Don’t even ask me about fire hazards, because all I know is that the kotatsu is my new love.

Doesn’t it look cozy?  A friend has a kotatsu with a pit underneath where you can dangle your legs and play anonymous footsie games.  There are a few months of winter left, so I’m thinking I can justify finding a kotatsu of my own.  If it works out, you won’t hear from me until spring.

by

Raw Egg Pasta Sauce

Since I’m now a working woman, my daily routine as a Tokyo Housewife is no longer.  That is a gentle way of saying our apartment is a complete mess, I may have let my kanji study slide, and I now fail regularly at keeping food in the cabinets.  These days, more often than not I’m finding 7 pm roll around with nothing planned for dinner.  And then I realize I ate cereal for lunch and I’m starving and ready to gnaw off my hand.

So what’s a housewife to do?  I pester Dan.  Here is what one of our chat conversations looked like this week:

Me: would you like pancakes for dinner?  that is not a trick question
Dan: i’ll eat whatever you cook
Me: well, i can cook pancakes, mushrooms, a little bit of leftover rice, pasta with no sauce, eggs (again)
Me: oh, and there is avocado 🙂

Please forgive me for loving emoticons.  I could blame Japan, but really, those smiley faces have been in my repertoire for years.  (You should see the emoticons available on my cell phone — given the chance, I could compose my autobiography using only those things.)  So, with that list of random ingredients, I decided to throw everything (well, almost) into the pot, cross my fingers, and hope for something edible.  Dan mentioned he’d heard about eggs in pasta, and a quick Google search confirmed it exists.

I think the creamy-egg-in-pasta idea was suddenly less scary because in Japan, I’m not afraid of eating raw eggs.  My new chef friend told me that the date on the egg carton – usually a week after purchase — is for when you need to refrigerate the eggs, not throw them out.  They are that fresh.  So, I went for it.

This is our kitchen, maxed out for space yet again.  Thank goodness we only own two pots.  I sauteed some エリンギ eringi mushrooms (if you are curious what they look like whole, you can peek here) and cooked up the pasta.  When the pasta was done and drained, I threw in the cooked mushrooms, two eggs, the avocado, salt, and a splash of milk.  And some black pepper.  And… it was delicious.

OK, so maybe this is the least convincing photo ever, but you have to believe me.  I was amazed at how good this was, considering I took (almost) every last bit of food left in our apartment and threw it all together.  In the past this plan has not gone so well (translation: anchovies and tomatoes).  This time, triumph!

Anyone else out there willing to try the Raw Egg Pasta Sauce?

by

I Drink Your Pancake

This is a hotcake milkshake, and it is a bad idea.

A mix between pancake batter, maple syrup, and whole milk, I picked this up from a vending machine near our apartment.

I spend most of my time gushing about awesome food, telling friends and family back home how Japan “just gets” food. I know it gets on everyone’s nerves.

Anyway, this is just to show that this country doesn’t always get it. Sometimes they can be just as clueless as Denny’s.

Unless… companies purposely make ridiculous products to get chumps like me to try them, following the thought process of, “Ew, gross. I wonder what it tastes like.”

Rats. Japan gets me.

Oh look, cold curry risotto.

 

by

I Give Thanks

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  A bold statement, I know.  Though really, it’s a no-brainer.  I love to eat and drink good wine, and my favorite way to do those things is slowly and with friends.  I don’t even like turkey that much.  But I love the ritual.  I love that it takes all day to prepare a meal, mostly from scratch.  I love talking and fussing about the turkey.  I love gathering with my friends and family to eat and gossip and laugh.  I usually like to wear a new sweater.  Oh, and I love the pie.

I love Thanksgiving dinner so much, that when I met a woman with an American restaurant a few weeks ago, I offered to help her with her Thanksgiving catering and peel potatoes, just for fun.  And so this past week I spent a few mornings at her shop, chopping and slicing (and chatting her ears off).  So maybe I had an ulterior motive and was hoping she’d take pity on me and be my friend, but that’s it.  I knew her turkeys were already called for.

I spent Thanksgiving Day at home, cooking a pumpkin soup and preparing for our first US holiday away from home.  I had time (a first!) to think about the things I am thankful for.  And then I got a message from my new friend the Caterer.  She had some turkey leftovers and would I like them?  Yes!  Please!  When I stopped by her shop, she presented me with a beautiful tray of… an entire Thanksgiving feast for two.  It was amazing.  Wild rice, brussel sprouts, cranberries — all the things I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

And so we had our first Thanksgiving away from home, and it suddenly didn’t feel so far away.  Big dinners with my family happen frequently, and not just on holidays.  So I feel lucky.  And turkey and new friends have now popped into my life unexpectedly.  I can’t help but think of all the kindness and love around me.  For all of this, I am thankful.

For those of you in Tokyo, I encourage you to check out Cravings — the food is wonderful!  Tel: 03-6400-0188, 1F 1-3-12 Minami Azabu Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0047