Food

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A Day of Eating

I’d like to invite you along on a day of gluttonous behavior.

Last weekend Dan and I explored Kichijoji, hip place for living 15 minutes west of Shinjuku on the Chūō line.  Our plan was to take a walk, find some lunch, and perhaps do a little window shopping.  We really didn’t get too far before the first snack attack.

Round 1 landed us in a vegetarian restaurant, which can be hard to find in Japan.  A nod to its hipness factor, Kichijoji has a few, and the result was lunch at Deva Deva Cafe.  Dan went for one of the six veggie burgers on the menu and I, predictable as always, chose curry rice.

Next we found Bakery Café Linde and picked up some fresh pretzels.  Showing a little bit of self restraint (the last of the day), we put these in our pockets for later.

Our walk through Kichijoji ended at Cafe Zenon, a manga cafe where, rumor had it, some amazing lattes could be found.

And a mid-afternoon coffee in Tokyo just wouldn’t be complete without an accompanying dessert set.

That’s one beautiful pudding you’re looking at (Dan’s feelings about pudding are summarized here).  I had the Autumn Special — waffle, chips, and cream made with sweet potato together with fresh pears and fig, all dusted with fresh chestnut.  Mmmm.

On our way back to the train station:

That is one scenic 7-11.  On the train home Dan said to me, “We have to transfer at Shinjuku station?  How convenient!”  The exclamation point in that sentence doesn’t do justice to the creepy weird look on his face.  I knew this meant only one thing — ramen.

Is this round 3 or 4?  I’ve lost track.  One of the most famous ramen shops in the city, Men-ya Musashi is located just outside of Shinjuku station.  It has awesome samurai decor and is packed.  Since it was Sunday evening, the line stretched the length of the restaurant but hadn’t yet gone out the door, a lucky break for us.  Here is my bowl of ramen before:

And the sad scene after:

I just couldn’t finish, and left a lone soldier behind.  Sorry, you beautiful piece of pork, there just wasn’t room for you in there with all your friends.

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A Tourist in Familiar Lands

Is there really a difference between being a visitor to a place and being dubbed a tourist?  Perhaps.  I know many people who dislike being pegged as tourists, but in Tokyo I can’t help but look like one all the time.  I sometimes even use it to my advantage. People are happy to help you find your way, the next train, or the best dish at a restaurant.  In Japan especially, a crowd usually forms for a reason, because the site or snack being ogled is worth it.  That being said, when I visit many cities in the US, I try to blend in, go off the beaten track, and look as little like a tourist as possible.  Why I make a distinction, I’m not really sure.

Dan and I spent last week on a whirlwind trip through San Francisco and Washington, DC.  A business trip for him, I was lucky to be footloose and fancy free in two of my favorite cities.

In San Francisco my days were filled with friends and their favorite haunts, and I spent my time eating and drinking in good company.  Not once did I set foot in a museum (gasp!).  During this trip I finally felt like I was getting to know SF like a local.  Well, as much as possible when taking taxis to our swanky hotel on Nob Hill so as to avoid the steep climb…

Then it was off to DC for the second half of the week, where I hit more tourist sites than I did when I actually lived there.  Taking in the Smithsonian Renwick Gallery for the first time (shame on me, that place was great!) was one of the highlights, as was the updated Asia and elephant trails at the Zoo and the Rally to Restore Sanity at the National Mall.

Since for me travel is really about food, I’ll share my week in meals: huevos rancheros (just 30 minutes after we stepped off the plane), delicious puerto rican pollo al horno, scones du jour (ginger, lemon, pear, blackberry), tacos and more tacos, Blue Bottle coffee, visits to Arizmendi bakery, the Ferry Building and Tartine, deep-dish and wood-fired pizzas, egg scramble and grits, Taylor’s pastini salad, some of the best baba ghannouge I’ve ever had, and maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but oh-so-lovely California and Virginia wines were consumed, uh, probably every day.

For those who are counting, I had pie three times (apple 1, pumpkin 2).  If you include pizza, you can up that six.  I also had four scones and one cheese & berry danish.  They aren’t really pie, but they count for their buttery pastry goodness.

So what does it mean to be a tourist, anyway?  Last week I found myself acting more like a tourist in DC, a city I know well and lived in for years, while in San Francisco, where I’ve spent a total of 6 days, I flitted from cafe to bakery to hair salon like I owned the place.  Sure, maybe a visit to Alcatraz would have enriched my experience in San Francisco.  Right, sort of like a visit to DC’s Air & Space Museum on a Saturday afternoon (for those of you not in-the-know, that would be a death sentence.  NASM be crazy full of strollers.  You’ll certainly lose a toe).

So what really helps you get to know a place?  Personally, I think it’s in the tacos and cheese grits.

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Kare Raisu to the Curry Rescue

Kare raisu カレーライス is Japanese style curry rice, and my new favorite make-at-home meal.

Though somewhat unknown outside of Japan, curry rice is a common dish in these parts.  Introduced by the British during the Meiji era (1869–1913), Japanese style curry rice is like Indian curry, though a few steps (colonizations?) removed.  It has a rich curry flavor, though is not spicy and usually includes a hint of sweetness.  Curry rice can be made with any sort of meat and vegetable combo, though beef or pork with a hearty stock of potatoes and carrots is most common.

I love kare raisu, and eat it more than I’d like to admit.  It’s a sort of comfort food, like mac and cheese in the United States:  it’s warm, filling, and something you can count on to taste good (enough).  It has become my go-to when I encounter a menu I can’t fully read, never mind the fact that I usually end up with a giant plate of fried pork in brown sauce, and look around to discover it is the man’s meal of choice.  All the other women (and Dan) have beautiful plates of fish, while me and the boys go for the put-some-meat-on-those-bones meat… but I digress.

Curry rice is actually quite simple to make, so I decided it was time to try it out for myself — cook up some meat and vegetables and add my choice of curry roux, which come in blocks and can be picked up at the local grocery store.  Easy, right?

Uh, right.  That’s an entire aisle at the supermarket dedicated to curry roux (a comparison of some of them here).  After a little more research, I discovered that most of those packages contain a lot of stuff I’m not so interested in ingesting, such as sodium and MSG.  It was time to learn how to make my own curry roux, from scratch.

Because the Internet is amazing, I found this video which made the entire process a breeze.  (Thanks, Matsumoto-san!)

First step, gather the ingredients. Don’t you love it when vegetables play together so nicely?

Those of you with a keen eye will notice that yes, I bought discounted meat.  What can I say?  It had カレー (curry) written right on the package, and I was pretty sure it was pork, so the deal was done.  I picked up S&B brand curry powder and tonkatsu とんかつ sauce (a brown sauce sort of like Worcestershire, you may remember it from here) because I have no brand loyalty and I like their logo (I guess now I have brand loyalty), and eventually the flour was identified by the flowers on the package — not to be confused with the flowers on the sunflower oil, please!

Next, I’d like you to observe how this simple little dish completely maxed out my kitchen space.  One burner for meat, one burner for roux, one hand for mixing, one hand for photo-ing…

After achieving a golden roux, I added the curry powder, tonkatsu sauce and cayenne (I like a little spicy) to the mix and set it aside.  I have to say, at this point I was questioning the deliciousness of my made-from-scratch meal:

In the one other pot I own, I simultaneously sauteed onions, browned the meat, added carrots and water, and brought it all to a boil.  After a while, in went the potatoes, an apple, and more curry powder.  The apartment finally started to smell like the kare raisu I know and love:

After about 30 minutes, in went the roux and some frozen peas, and voila! My homemade curry:

My curry rice was thicker than some, but I didn’t mind.  And though it didn’t photograph well, I thought the comforting effect was spot-on.

Again, a big thanks to Matsumoto-san at No Recipes for his handiwork.  Check out the link if you are interested in making your own curry rice.  いただきます!

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Crafty Pie

In the wake of my tirade pie-rade the other day, I couldn’t resist a little of this:

While wandering through my friendly neighborhood craft store Yuzawaya, I came across the make-cute-things-out-of-felt aisle.  Usually able to resist its powerful magnetic pull, this time I fell victim and I came home with a sweet little kit of my very own.  I blame the pie.

I haven’t yet delved into too many Japanese craft kits (and there are many! glass, wood, felt, wool, paper, plastic… hobbies are serious business) but figured I could handle this one — just cut the felt into shapes and stitch it together like in the photograph.  Right, piece of cake, er, I mean easy as pie.

I should know better than to trust my own clichés!  As anyone who has made a pie knows, pate brisee is not easy (damn you, ice cold butter chunks that make it impossible to roll you into a flat pie crust shaped circle!).  I opened the kit this morning, and the pieces are teeeny.  I don’t think I can cut them that small, let alone stitch them into something smaller.  Apparently my big Norwegian hands are not well-suited for cute felt things.

Also, I forgot that there might be directions to follow, and that they would be in Japanese.  What can I say, pie + crafts make me crazy.

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I’d Pie for You.

Oh man, do I love pie.

I’ve got nothing against cake and will hardly ever turn down a piece of fluffy goodness if offered.  But pie!  Mmm.  The buttery flakey goodness of pie crust, combined with the slightly-sweet-but-mostly-tart fruit filling.  Mmm-mmm.  Don’t get me started on custard-filled pies.

I wasn’t always a pie person. I have to admit that in my early years I was a gooey chocolate brownie sundae kind of gal.  But then I met Dan, who one year requested a pie for his birthday instead of a cake (gasp!), and it was a done deal from there on out.  Once you get to know a pie, and learn to appreciate its simple rules and total free form willy-nilly insides, there is no turning back.  Someday, perhaps I’ll have my own pie shop.  I’ll call it the Pie Hole.

Pie is good any time of year, but fall is a pie-maker’s season.  Apple pie is a humble standard, but Thanksgiving brings out the bourbon-infused, pecan pumpkin crazy lady in me.  The late summer blueberry season gets me excited, and then fall hits and BAM! It’s really pie season.

And so, fall approaches in the fair metropolis of Tokyo, and I find myself without an oven, without a pick-your-own orchard, and without pie.  Can someone please make this and just tell me how good it is?  Or, maybe not tell me.  I don’t want to know.

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The Day Korea Broke Me

It’s pretty obvious that we love food.  We’ve been in Tokyo almost 4 months now, and I’m still not sick of Japanese food.  In fact, I crave it.  I will try (almost) anything once, and even if I don’t care for a particular dish or cuisine, I can usually still appreciate its existence.  And so, while on a recent trip to Korea I was excited to see what it had to offer my gullet.  When I asked a friend who recently visited Korea what she thought of the food, she replied, “A whole lot of spicy and raw.”  No problem, I thought.  I like both those things, so I was excited for a Korea Food Adventure.

Our first night in Jeju, we went after an island specialty — grilled black boar.  We were told that the pork came from the restaurant’s neighbor, which I believed, since we ate in a big tent over grills made from barrels.  Never mind that the old guy running the place was flirting with me, he’d never make a story like that up, right?

You see all the fat?  That’s right, we ate it.  They poured beer into that little cup and we used it as a dipping sauce.  And my friend was right, there was also a lot of spicy and raw, in the form of banchan (side dishes, including kimchi).

Our second night we tried another island specialty, hairtail fish stew (after a false start, which included a search for pheasant, a deserted hunting club, and a very scenic cab ride).  The giant clay pot of fish and potatoes was delicious (I think Dan licked that pot clean), though the rest of the spread looked suspiciously similar… spicy and raw.

Night #3 sent us to another outdoor restaurant (that’s island life, I guess) with more grilled meats and more, that’s right, spicy and raw.

Dan is only slightly bothered by the fact that I keep cutting off his head in these photos, in favor of the food:

Then it was off to Seoul, and on our first night I made the ultimate mistake — I picked a restaurant out of my guidebook and we took a taxi across town looking for it, only to discover it was no longer there.  Thankfully a very friendly salaryman took pity on us and led us to one of his favorite places instead.  I was looking forward to trying something different — not all Korean food is cooked at the table, right?  True, boribap was prepared in a location different from my table and was very tasty, though it was still very meaty, and very spi… well, you know.

On my last day in Seoul the weather was looking a little iffy (thanks, Typhoon Kompasu) and I’d had three straight days of museums and markets, so I decided to take a break from all that darn culture and went to N Seoul Tower, a bonafide tourist attraction that promises great views of the city. Well, it wasn’t exactly a clear day:

And that’s when I broke down and ordered the 4 course set lunch at an Italian restaurant in the tower.

It was either that or more spicy and raw, and I just couldn’t do it again.  So I did what I try never to do when on vacation — eat at tourist spots, eat cuisine that isn’t local, and eat gigantic expensive set meals by myself.

Damn you, spicy and raw.

…

So OK, we did have one awesome night of non-spicy and non-raw foods, a meal eaten entirely at street carts.  I feel like I wouldn’t do Seoul food (heh) justice if I didn’t show you these:

Clockwise, that’s a pronto pup with french fries fried directly into the batter, a doughnut cart, my doughnut of choice filled with black sesame and brown sugar, bindaetteok (mung bean pancake), and the night market where said pancake was consumed.

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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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Food Porn

In preparation for the Azabu Juban Noryo festival happening in our neighborhood this weekend, where I plan to eat my way from street-to-street for 3 straight days, I thought I’d clear some space on my camera and share a few food pics I’ve had in the vault.  I’m not sure our hurry-and-take-the-photo-so-I-can-shove-this-in-my-mouth photography really deserves the label “food porn,” but in any case, I thought these few photos were worth sharing.  Itadakimasu! *

A few weeks back, I was wandering the streets of Kappabashi (the kitchenware district, this site does a great job of describing it) and it was sooo hot and I was sooo hungry.  I stepped into the only restaurant I could find, where, alas, there was no English to be had, so I ordered the daily special, which was a gigantic plate of tempura.  Luck be a fried shrimp! (Two actually, along with mushrooms, okra, eggplant, and shiso.  This meal was also served with rice, soup, pickles and tea.  Oofdah.)

Dan and I discovered this place while wandering the streets of Shimokitazawa, a hip neighborhood of Tokyo that has been compared to Williamsburg in NYC.  May I present a ball of rice wrapped in bacon (!), sort of like a meat version of onigiri.  I may have put mayonnaise on mine.

Last weekend we found the ramen shop Gogyo, where the ramen is served black!  I had the kogashi shoyu, Dan went for the kogashi miso.  Both were “burnt” ramen, and I’m not sure how they got it that way, but the open kitchen had big flames and the ramen had that delicious almost-burnt, grilled-meat flavor.  We’re definitely going back for the black (alliteration is irresistible!).

Tokyo summers — the bad part is that it’s hot, the good part is that there is kakigori, a shaved-ice mound of sweet deliciousness much like the slushie I wrote about a few weeks ago. Kakigori is seasonal, so I plan to eat as much as I can in the next month.

I went for red bean and green tea, and Dan had fresh strawberry with a sweetened condensed milk glaze. These poor guys really didn’t stand a chance.

There you have it.  Don’t get me wrong, we eat a lot of weird and perhaps not-so-good things too (including the random mystery vegetables I try to cook at home), but those aren’t as fun to share.  Or are they?

* Your language lesson for the day: Itadakimasu いただきます roughly means “I humbly receive,” and is a traditional greeting before a meal.

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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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Sweet, Sweet Slushie

Seriously, this was so good.

It didn’t look like much from the photo I pointed at on the menu (I had limited choices and the other one was all green), but it turns out this ice is slightly sweet, and underneath the ice was azuki 小豆 (red bean), which is also slightly sweet, and it was the perfect treat for a hot rainy-season day.  I’m not totally sure what the little green and white globs were, but everyone else was dipping them in the sweet slushie juice, so I did the same.  The rose tea and matcha were a perfect complement.

The other great thing about this whole experience was that I successfully read (sort of) the sign out front, ventured inside even though it was on the second floor (gasp!), traded words in Japanese with the waitress, and then was rewarded with a delicious red bean slushie.  Victory is mine!

So who else thinks this thing looks like a panda?  I don’t totally see it, but Dan insists… perhaps I was just too focused on the deliciousness.

Kanoko 鹿乃子 5-7-19-1, 2F Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo