May 10th, 2008
Tsukuba University is renowned for its science and the size of its campus. Apparently it is number one in Japan for science and number 2 for campus size.
What I found out yesterday was that it is up there in the culinary rankings as well for pork ramen. A couple of slabs of pork, some bamboo shoots a stack of noodles and some nori turned an otherwise difficult day into a pleasure for at least 5 minutes. It is a shame that it is not possible to eat continually. If it were, I probably would have stuck with this dish for the rest of the day. As it was, I was forced to return to reality and deal with the world again with only the memory of a quick, delicious and cheap meal to keep me happy.
What is your favourite food on a bad day? Is there something that is guaranteed to make a bad day turn good for you? Share your secret. You may well be providing a valuable community service.
By Tom -- 1 comment
May 9th, 2008
Check this out for easy.
Stir fry minced beef with some grated ginger and a splash of sake. Drop in cubed firm tofu, mushrooms, green vegetables and whatever else you have and serve it up on rice. A five minute dinner that tastes like it took all day.
By Tom -- 0 comments
May 8th, 2008
Everything that glitters is not gold. I love pudding, parfait and ice cream. What could be better than a pudding-grand parfait-ice cream? Almost anything as far as I am concerned. Next time I will look instead for a chocolate-beef-ice cream or the Kimchi-prawn- ice cream. Maybe they would taste better.
By Tom -- 0 comments
May 7th, 2008
Tonight my wife cooked for us (always a welcome occurrence). She cooked brown rice and served green veges, mushrooms and sesame chicken with a sesame dipping sauce. Why do I never think of good ideas like that?
By Tom -- 0 comments
May 6th, 2008
Today is the last day of Golden Week here in Japan. It is made up of a string of public holidays (this week broken up by some work days for some malicious reason). Yesterday was Boys day so I thought I would share one last bit of boy’s day for this year. This morning we opened some other Kashiwamochi that were given to us by some friends and found out that they were of 2 different species. The first are red bean filled the second are “white” red bean filled. Can anyone tell us what makes the difference?
By Tom -- 0 comments
May 5th, 2008
On Boy’s Day in Japan, there are plenty of different sweets to try. As far as I can work out this is not specifically for boys day except that to celebrate they stamp a little carp design on the outside. Not surprisingly it is filled with red bean paste and is all about growing up big and strong. However if you eat too much of it all you are going to do is grow up big and fat.
By Tom -- 0 comments
May 3rd, 2008
The 5th May in Japan is a holiday to celebrate Boy’s Festival. It is all about healthy growing boys and there are a lot of symbols ranging from beautiful flowing carp streamers (koinobori) to samurai replicas. Of course being Japan, there is traditional food as well. My favourite Boy’s day food is Kashiwamochi.
It is simply a flattened ball of mochi (rice cake) filled with An (sweet red bean paste) all wrapped up in an oak leaf. Although the oak leaf isn’t to eat it makes such a difference to the taste and aroma, it is something to be experienced. It ends up still sweet but also with this mysterious but delicious oak flavour. Unfortunately my boy is still too young to eat it without choking but maybe next year. Until then I will have to eat it for him
By Tom -- 1 comment
May 2nd, 2008
We had an American friend (living in Japan) come and stay on his way back over to America for a few days. I thought it would be good to try and ease him back into the American lifestyle with a BBQ. How do you think I went. This steak measured about 2 inches thick and as you could see it filled the plate. Maybe I went overboard with the thickness, but after half an hour in the weber with the lid down it tasted great. Sliced garlic and a little canola oil and it went all crisped on the outside but just right inside. We also threw in potatoes and imo (Japanese sweet potato) into the fire. How did I go? Is this anything like a real American BBQ?
By Tom -- 4 comments
May 1st, 2008
Pino have just released a new ice cream in a rare cheese flavour. I am not sure if it is rare cheese because there aren’t many around or because it contains mascarpone. Can anyone help me. In Australia I never heard of rare cheesecakes or rare cheese. I only ever new of cheese by its various names. Is mascarpone known as rare cheese in any other country?
By Tom -- 2 comments
April 30th, 2008
Tonight my wife and I took on the biggest apple that I have ever seen. In the real world it looked even bigger than the photo. It was a genuine family sized apple and was probably destined to be a wonderful gift rather than simply being snapped up by hungry Australians to eat at home.
Japanese fruit shops will often have a section reserved specifically for these super fruit. Super sized, super quality or super out of season but always with a super price tag. These guys weren’t too expensive at about 150 yen each ($1.50) but it is not uncommon to see apples , citrus, stone fruit or melons for exorbitant prices. They are grown and transported with special care to become perfect gifts for those that you want to honour. Gifts giving is truly an art here.
By Tom -- 0 comments
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