watashi to tokyo

Baby bee, Locusts, Eyes of Tuna, Rare Horse... FOODS!

Oh oh! Four Japanese foods are ranked in the "17 WTF Flavors That Should Not Exist But Actually Do" (9gag).

I don't think tomato and carrot ice cream is weird, you thinks so? And for me, the big issue is other foods and drinks looks JOKE, no? But wasp crackers, Wasabi beer, curry soda are not joke, they are real products for sale. And we have more such foods, maybe you will think should not exit.

Baby Bee : Here are recipe of baby bee and you can see many people cook those at home (warning. there is baby bee photos.)

locusts : We cooked them with soys sauce and sugar. It's taste like shrimp and I can say not bad.

Eyes of Tuna : It has a rich DHC and collagen, not bad all. We can't waste any parts of tuna.

Horse Sashimi : This is a kind of luxury food, so there is no recipe and usually we eat at restaurant. it taste like regular meet, close to soft beef. We call Horse samishi "Sakura"(cherry blossom) coz, fresh meet has pink color like flowers.


Anyway, PEPSI Japan release strange flavor almost every year. For me, the worst three PEPSI is PEPSI cucumber, PEPSI Mont Blanc and PEPSI SHISO (perilla). I am not sure those are joke or serious, mabye they want to make news? I really not sure and I have never drunk any of them.

Cost of foods in restaurant is cheap in Tokyo

People still have impression that the cost of living in Tokyo is pretty high. However because of the long deflation, it is not true anymore. Here is the latest ranking "Cost of Living Index 2016". Appearently Switzerland, North Europe and UK and USA is mush higher than Tokyo. I went to Seattle for 10 days and back to Tokyo two days ago. Then I could feel it by myself with my own experience.

Most of all, the foods cost in the restaurant. This is the chart of the average lunch cost of workers in Japan. Because of the Abenomics?  The cost has a bit up thought, it is still less than $7.  So what a kind of lunch they are eating by less than $7?  We have 500yen coin and 500yen lunch is called "one coin lunch".  Here is the photos when I search with the words "one coin lunch".  Looks great right?

The Government try to emerge from deflation,  but it is not easy. Actually just cheap and nasty things and service disappeared, I feel we have better quality and service than before.  This can be a good sample, "Genka bar" is a Japanese bar. Thier charge system is interesting. You need to pay 1600yen as enter charge, but all menu are sold at cost, a glass of beer is 180yen ($1.7), a glass of Macallan is also 180yen. So even you drink THREE glass of beer and TWO glass of whisky and eat ROAST BEEFf and TACO RICE, the bill is just $30 or so. great right?

Genka bar @ Gotanda map
17:00-23:30

Ganka bar @ Akasaka Mitsuke map
17:00-23:30

Genka bar @ Ginza map
Mon-Sat 18:00-05:00
Sun 17:00-23:00

Milk Potato chips and Toast Potato chips

I wrote this post Potato Chips Japan long long time ago. In that post, the pupular flavors were consomme, light salt, nori-salt, butter. Those ranking won't be changed even now in 2016. And also Japanese unique flavors seem no change. There are wasabi, soy sauce, and yuzu pepper in calbee which is the biggest potato chips maker in Japan.

On the other hands, second position maker Koikeya's merchandise strategy is more aggressive :-). Since last year, they push potato chips for breakfast. in 2015 Last they released Banana potato chips and Peach potato chips as morning fruits. They has very sweet smell and reputation on the internet was so so. Despite of that, Koikeya has released another morning potato chips again. Those are toast potato chips and Milk potato chips. I didn't try it yet, but some said those are not bad at all, toast flavor is nothing wrong and milk flavor is taste like thin cookies. Hmm I won't need them though.

Cool soba allergy test patch

This is very cool. Japanese tattoo like soba allergy patch test. Some people has soba allergy. Soba is healthy food but please do allergy check first.

Daikon Oroshi Art

Daikon Oroshi (Japan Times) is grated white radish. When you eat tempra or grilled fish, you will see small amount of daikon oroshi that is used a refreshing addition to tempra sauce or soy sauce. I love to eat Oroshi Shabu Shabu. It's very easy to cook, "boiled thin sliced pork and add a lot of Daikon Oroshi and shredded cucumber then eat with dressing (ponzu is great but other soy sauce base dressing is fine)"

Oroshi nabe aka Yukinabe(washoku guide) is hot pot (just one cookbook) with adding a lot of Daikon Oroshi into soy sauce base soup, very good way to eat a lot of vitamin and fibers. In recent years, Daikon Oroshi art is hot in Japan. Since Daikon Oroshi is white and can make the shape easily after squeezing, People enjoy to make some creation by Daikon Oroshi. Here are some.

Bento Bento

 

Yes, We have rich bento culture, charaben, Ekiben, convenience store bento etc,. And basically we eat bento for lunch.

There are five types of lunch for workers.
1. Hand-made lunch bento. We call it “AISAI BENTO” it means my lovely wife’s handmade bento. But of course, some guys who love cooking make it by himself. This is sample which a guy made lunch bento by himself)
2. Company cafeteria. (Yahoo Japan made a nice one and I eat at there almost everyday)
3.Buy Convenient or store bento.
4.Eat outside shops. ( I really think lunch cost is really cheap in Japan, much cheaper than the U.S at least. I will write about it later, now I put link to the photos of one coin “500yen lunch” )
5.Bento Delivery

Talking to Bento delivery, there are two types system. One is you order bento and they deliver it to your place. Another one is they come to your company and open small shop in only lunch time. My work has that one too coz some people want to eat lunch at their desk.

Tamagoya is one of such bento company. They come to our work and open small shop at work, their daily lunch bento is pretty good for busy day.　And recently Shashokuru will add to the service. And they have well known restaurant’s bento.

I think lunch selection is really rich and reasonable here in Japan and Bento is great stuff, but the best bento is always mom’s handmade bento. This has English subtitle, check it out.

link
Chara ben
A great English Bento site
BBC Close-up: Japan's amazing lunchboxes "Chara-ben"

A Nice Japanese Diner near Asakusa

Nice Japanese Diner for foreigners.
Ashi is a small Japanese Diner at Asakusa area. You can enjoy sake and nice foods for drinking and also "teishoku" (set menu) for dinner. The owder lived in the U.S for 10 years and he made a menu that foreign peoples will enjoy. Since it is very near to Sensoji. Good to visit after Asakusa sight seeing.

Sushi Police TV show and Pasta police?

Do you know sushi police? Some years ago, Japanese government set it to promote food safety and hygiene standards for japanese food in foreign countries, espeically for sushi. But because of the name, people misunderstood Japanese government tries to accuse wried Japanese food or too bad sushi. In the end, Sushi Police didn't come ture.

However Short Animation TV show "Sushi Police" is created with inspration from that event. Here is the video with English subtitle. Funny, oh please don't be serious.

 

Funny part is there are Pasta police from Italy in this animation. I didn't check their part, but surely Pasta police will pissed off to Japanese pasta, we have a lot of Japaenese arrange pasta like Mentaiko Pasta or Natto Pasta. I must say those are not Italian anymore, we may say they are Japanese food using spaghetti.

But how about Napoliritan? It has a name of Napoli and taste of Tomato, BUT it's simply "fried" spaghetti with tomato ketchup, onion and sausage. In Japan Napolitan has long history and of course we looooooove it to have Naporitan festival. I think Napolitan is worse for Italian Police than Natto Spaghetti.

Hot 6 Sweets in Tokyo in 2016!

There are a huge number of sweets in Tokyo, here is a selection hot 6 sweets in Tokyo 2016 and of course all are Tokyo originals.

ZAKUZAKU : Cream puff with rich custard cream covered by crispy almond powder puff.

1 piece 250yen
Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Shinjuku 3-38-1 Luminest B1F
OPEN 10:30-22:00
Tokyo Shibuya-ku Jingumae 1-7-1 Cute cute Harajuku 1F
OPEN 10:00-20:00

anovan : We call it "Bouchee". It's two baked meringue confectionery sandwiched whipped cream.

Tokyo Shinbuya-ku Jingumae 4-26-22 Harajuku H building 1F
OPEN 11:00-20:00

RINGO : Ringo means apple in Japanese. Custard and apples in super crispy pie, they sold over 10000 pies in a week.

1piece 370yen
Tokyo Toshima-ku Minamiikebukuro 1-28-2 JR Ikebukuro Station 1F
OPEN 10:00-22:00

Le Souffle : Super fluffy soft souffle fades in 30 seconds, they have about 40 kinds of souffles, not only sweets one but also vegetable and omal or such dinner type one.

Tokyo Meguro-ku Midorigaoka 2-25-7 2F
OPEN 10:00-20:00

Number Sugar : Handmade Caramels. Their flavors are vanilla, salt, ginger, orange peal etc,. Package and wrapping is cute too.

Tokyo Shibuya-ku Jingumae 5-11-11 1F
OPEN 11:00-20:00 (close Tuesday)

Ken's cafe Tokyo : their special Gateau au Chocolat is changed in temperature. In regular temp, texture is smooth like terrine, when you make it hot, it becomes fodant chocolat with melting chocolate, and make it cool in fridge, it gets to be rich ganache. ahh lovely

Tokyo Shinjuku-ku Shinjuku 1-23-3 1F
OPEN 10:00-20:00

UNIQLO and Ootoya

Uniqlo and Lemaire's Second Collection has started. UNIQLO said this is the last collaboration with Lemaire.

We can buy HERMES designer's work by only 1990yen! I am always impressed to the UNIQLO's corporate efforts. But I wonder what is going on the background. How is environmental pollution, low wages, bad labor environments? 1990yen is cheaper than one night dinning out in Tokyo, can we value it deeply like real HERMES one?

On the other hand, personally I really think real Japanese food's price in the U.S. is too high. The average price of Ootoya NY is over 2000yen or so. In Japan Ootoya is a reasonable "Japanese dinner" serving "Teishoku", I think they don't have any menu costs over 1000yen in Japan. Yayoitei is a similar type of Japanese dinner and they will open the shop in CA this year, their "Pork ginger" is $15.5, but it is 680yen in Japan. Of course the price will depend on each location even in the U.S. Still I am feeling uneasy.

This is my recommendation in Ootoya. Chicken Nanban(fried chicken with boiled egg sauce)　870yen.