odds and ends

It is the last day of March, let's clean out some photos...

Kansai (Western Japan) style sakura mochi is sweet bean paste and a bumpy gelatinous outside made from Domyoji-ko.

Domyoji-ko is steamed mochi rice which is then dried. I think it looks like coarse sugar when it is dried and I think it is then re-constituted when it is used to make sakura mochi.

Kanto (Eastern Japan) style sakura mochi has a thin mochi outside, the sweet bean paste filling and the salted sakura leaf.

Sakura mochi has a salty and sweet flavor---salty from the sakura (cherry blossoms and leaves) which are soaked in a salt water mixture, sweet from the sweet bean paste.
On one of my walks, a Mini that I saw pull into a bank parking lot.

Sakura (cherry) tree in full bloom on one of my walks.

Fresh tulips decorate the lobby area of the Hilton West Plaza.

An animal hospital that I saw on my walk, has these cute dog parking stops, though I think they should change them, aren't they supposed to be taking care of the animals? not "using them" as parking stops??
Shrimp fried with won-ton wrappers at Ou-Lou (Hanshin Department Store). I've had this with spring roll wrappers before, this version is just as delicious.

Rilakkuma, a character by San-X (which I think its name is a combination of "relax" and "kuma" , is currently in French mode...I found this mechanical pencil (which the Japanese call "sharp pencil") at Kiddyland and this strawberry au lait drink at Lawson.

An easy side dish for dinner. The recipe was on one of my calendars. Cut an onion in half, wrap some bacon around the base, top with cheese and roast for about 30 to 40 minutes (220°C/420°F). Easy, cheesy and delicious!
Mascot's hayashi rice (hashed beef) roux has a demi-glace sauce base. I browned some onions and fresh mushrooms, then added some thinly sliced beef.

Diluted the roux with 2 cups of water and simmered. A delicious rich "stew".

I also boiled some fresh peas and roasted carrots and potatoes. This was a different but delicious version of "hayashi rice".

Since the sauce was demi-glace, I thought this might be nice over omurice (an omlette which envelops some rice) for another dinner....I was right.
Byron Bay's Sticky Date and Ginger cookies, chewy with small kicks of ginger here and there, great with a cup of tea!

The chicken nugget mustard sauce at McD's tastes like French's yellow mustard but creamier. Maybe leaning a bit towards honey mustard-ness? Anyway, this is my sauce of choice now.

Oh, and why are the nuggets and side salad so expensive? Total 550 yen (about US$5.50) for the two items...if you choose a salad instead of fries with your burger set, you'll need to pay 30 yen (about US$.30) extra...kinda like penalization if you ask me.

RF1's sakura bento...loved all the okazu (side dishes) and the rice was so cute with the sakura flower on it.

Vietnamese summer roll by RF1, they serve this with nuoc mam (sweet chili sauce).
Me-li-le Poom with almonds.

On one of my walks I spotted a Lotus Europa Special revving its engine in front of an auto body shop (by the way, there is also a yellow Ferrari Testarossa in the garage).

Kuri (chestnut) jam from my student (Thank you). This was chestnuts and sugar, more like chestnut paste though not as sweet...delicious!

Hoegaarden's White Beer (5% alcohol) kinda fruity and fizzy, different.
Gobo (burdock) salad with 7 different veggies in it...love the creamy sesame dressing and crunchiness from all the different vegetables.

Savory taiyaki, this version is similar to okonomiyaki, the bottom is pancake-like, there is shredded cabbage and red pickled ginger, the top is an egg and there is okonomiyaki sauce in there...different but delicious.

Have been interested in these music cases that are like backpacks. When I was in highschool we never had cases this colorful nor this easy to carry.

Every couple of weeks we get our recyclables taken away. These guys on bicycles come ahead of the city trucks to take the aluminum cans. The guys on bikes are actually doing this illegally because our tax dollars are being used to pay the trucks.

I remember once, one of these guys had a big bag of cans on the back of his bicycle and the bag broke...cans everywhere!

Remember I thought that Tougarashiya had a kim chee sushi? Well, I mis-read their sign, it said "korean-style" sushi, not "kim chee" sushi.

Whew...sorry this was a long post there was so much to share and not enough days to post.