hishidaya's pork ginger

Saw this on television the other night and had to try.

Hishidaya is a popular restaurant that used to be on the Tokyo University campus over 120 years ago but moved to their current  location near the Tokyo University Komaba campus in 2002.

Serves: 4

1000 grams (about 2 pounds) thinly sliced pork

1onion sliced thinly

1 or 2 tablespoons oil

Sauce: 150 cc (3/4 cup) shoyu

50 grams sugar

50 grams ginger, grated

3-4 cloves garlic, grated

Heat the pan on high and add the oil

Place the pork in the pan so that it does not overlap

Cover and count to 5.

Add the onions, flip the meat, cover and count to 5

Add a ladle of the sauce to the outer edge of the pan

Toss everything 3 times and serve.

Super fast and easy.

NOTES: this is a very quick dish so that the meat does not get tough.

BUT, the garlic tends to be raw, so it had quite a bite to it.

I should have used even thinner sliced pork so that it would cook through a little better.

I also should have weighed the ginger so that there was more ginger flavor than garlic flavor.

Satoshi enjoyed this, but for me the garlic was a bit too much.

I was happy to see that Hishidaya liked my photo on Instagram and I also found out they have a cookbook, so I hope to borrow it from our library.

Dunno if I would make this again, but I'm glad I tried it.

And when we feel it is safer to eat indoors, I hope we can go to try their dishes.

omma foods

Been wanting to try Omma Foods for awhile and finally got to the other day.

They are a bento place that serves mostly Korean foods.

I ordered the samgyeopsal bento...820 yen (tax included).

This was my first time trying samgyeopsal..the bento was hefty and filling.

Everything except the spinach and kinpira was tasty and the pork very tender.

The spinach and kinpira were mushy.

I'm glad I got to try this and look forward to trying more thing on their menu, like their spicy chicken or bi  bim kook soo

Omma Foods

5-12-10 Kugahara

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.6410.2233

Open daily 10:00-20:00

sweet 16

Guess what turned 16 today?!

This blog.

Through this krazy pandemic, the good times and the bad....

If you still read these posts, thank you!

If you’ve tried any of the recipes here, thank you!

Whether we are friends IRL (in real life) or just virtually, thank you!

Grateful to be able to do this and share our adventures with you.

p.s.I was trying to make a mosaic of different favorite photos from the past, and the program I was using ate it, so…

mozzarella soaked in tamari

The other day, I was watching the news and the announcer was talking about pizza and how they had used mozzarella soaked in tamari to top the pizza.

It sounded delicious, so I searched online and found a recipe.

I bought some mini mozzarella and soaked it in the tamari mixture for about 6 hours as suggested.

We didn’t have it melted on pizza, just ate it as is.

I thought it would have more flavor but it didn’t, I guess mozzarella can be a bit bland?!

After a day of soaking, it had way more flavor.

I want to try soaking cream cheese in this next.

If it turns out, will post the recipe here.

Stay tuned.

this and that

I was craving home and ordered some coffees from Big Island Coffee Roasters.

I was tracking the package and watched it go from Hawaii to Ohio to Hawaii to Los Angeles to Tokyo (WT?!)...other than that it arrived safely and within a week.

The next two photos are gross so skip over them if you are eating or cannot bear to see smooshed things...

As we were walking back from the market, I wasn't paying attention and stepped on this caterpillar/worm.

I heard it "pop" and then looked back and saw this half.

And this half....ew!

Then of course  I “had” to take a photo…sorry dude.

We tried these instant curries made by Negombo 33, a curry shop in Saitama.

Lamb keema and Pork Vindaloo.

I thought it was interesting that it came with some dried sansho (Japanese pepper) to sprinkle on the keema.

Both were spicy but the pork vindaloo was super spicy!

Mouth.on.fire.
 

 The sunrise was super pretty yesterday morning.

Tokyo's daily cases drastically declined over the last week to almost 200 something the other day!

 Which lead experts to question why it declined as fast as it did…they still don’t know why

Our (Tokyo) state of emergency looks like it will "finally" be lifted on September 30th, I think we have been in and out a state of emergency since the start of 2021?!

Anyway, hopefully we will be able get out and about more.

Please take care and stay safe.

Have a nice weekend.

tokyo people

Today is the first day of Autumn and a holiday, Shubun no hi (Autumn Equinox).

Sharing some Tokyo people...This woman was helping her dog take a walk.

Its back legs seemed paralyzed, so by using this strap thingy, she keeps its weight off of the back legs.

Sometimes it looked more like she was "dragging" the dog around though...

I've seen a different dog with a "wheelchair" for its back legs, if I see it again, I hope to get a picture to share with you.

At first when I saw this woman I thought she was holding a baby.

When I looked closer it was her hand....ha!

The weather has gone back to Summer...yesterday was 29C (84F) but apparently felt like 32C (89F)

There is a saying that the heat changes to cold with O-higan...hopefully it will get cooler starting tomorrow.

jugoya

Last night was Jugoya which I've written about here.

It was the first time in 8 years that the day coincided with a full moon.

We purchased some sushi and had some sake for dinner.

The weather dude had mentioned that we might not be able to see the moon because of clouds or rain, but luckily we were able to.

I also wanted to get some ohagi, but the shop we usually buy from was a little too far from the market we were at, so hopefully we'll get some today or tomorrow for O-higan (Autumn equinox). 

unmanned bakery

One of my favorite bakeries nearby, Bakery Alice, started something new..an unmanned bakery.

From 19:00 (which I think is their closing time), they fill these lockers with all sorts of baked goods.

You can purchase them from the lockers for 500 yen (tax included).

I think they put the items that were not able to sell in here and it is a kind of a  “surprise” as to what you will receive.

In their email, they mentioned that each locker's baked goods value was about 600 to 700 yen.

I think it is a good way to cut down on the amount of food thrown out in Japan.

I want to try to buy it just to see what’s in the locker.

Will write up about it if I get a chance to purchase it.

keiro no hi

Today is the start of Silver Week and a national holiday, Keiro no Hi (Respect for Aged Day), similar to Grandparents Day.

I've shown you my grandparents in the past and wanted to share with you this photo of my great grandparents.

Am bummed that no one in my family knows where the original photo is (it was actually more like a ceramic thing that had their photo on it) nor what their names are.

Appreciating our grandparents, great grandparents for always watching over us.

We’re keeping safe and staying close to home, have a good week.

this and that

I baked banana nut bread with the muffin mix I received from Val.

I'm glad that there was a loaf pan option on the back of the box since my oven is too small to bake 12 muffins at once.

Even though my loaf pan is non-stick, I was lazy and didn't want to grease the pan (you know, just in case the bread got stuck), so I looked online for a way to make a loaf liner.

The batter went into the crevasse where the paper is folded at the ends but otherwise, this was an easy way to fold a liner and clean up was easy too.

As for the banana nut bread, I added 2 handfuls of chocolate chips and some ground flax seed.

It is a very moist bread with all the oil that goes into it.

I'm glad we got to try this, I have most of it in the freezer and we've been enjoying slices for breakfast.

It is kinmokusei (osmanthus) season. I love this fragrance.

My Flickr friend Genie, does a Paris People on her IG stories which inspired me to do Tokyo People...she's stumbled on some rather "ahem" moments...

Proof that it has been a blazing summer...no?!

you should see my shorts line....
 

We tried this sweet potato ice cream made by Lotte for Family Mart.

So good!

Tasted like yakiimo (roasted sweet potato).

I'm glad we got to try this.

Tokyo People...this guy with all the cans is taking them illegally and can be fined.

Do you see the guy up in the tree?!

The leaves are starting to change...

Tokyo as well as the rest of Japan's case numbers are going down.

But, the severe cases as well as the deaths are quite high.

We are expecting a Typhoon Chanthu to pass over the weekend.

The typhoons of late have been weird, they start somewhere below Okinawa and start to move toward China and then "get stuck" in-between Japan and China, then the typhoon "re-groups" and moves up Kyushu and Honshu.

We've brought some things off of our lanai, but I think I may need to find space for the plants to come indoors too.

Hope you all are doing well.

Have a safe weekend.

inose

I saw somewhere that Inose sells their beef stew every Tuesday.

So, since I was in a rut as to what to eat/cook, we walked over to Zoshiki and went to check to see if Inose had their beef stew.

They did.

500 yen (tax included) for 1 serving.

I should've taken the photo before covering the whole bowl with gravy.

Underneath the gravy there is half a potato, some carrots and very tender beef.

I added some broccoli for color.

The beef stew is rich and is a demi-glace base.

I'm glad we got to try this and we'll be back to purchase this again.

shine muscat

I told you that I had ordered 2 kilos of Pizzutello Bianco...well, after the grapes arrived, my fridge was filled with the box.

Then on Wednesday Satoshi had his Zoom German class and a classmate was selling Shine Muscat grapes.

So he ordered 2 kilos...and he tells me on Friday that he ordered some!

So over the weekend we were eating the Pizzutello Biancos like krazy since we didn't know when the Shine Muscats would arrive.

I thought about freezing some of the Pizzutello grapes but since they have seeds, I thought it might be hard to eat.

Well, the box of Shine Muscat grapes arrived on Saturday night.

As V said, "what a grape problem to have"....ha!

The Shine Muscats orbs are huge! sweet and seedless.

We'll be eating these this week...

on a walk

Last Tuesday we got out and about.

It was actually cool enough, no humidity too...whoo!

We went to check out this bath house...Myojin-yu.

It is being used in a J-drama we are watching, and after looking online we realized it was about 40 minutes walking distance from where we are so we wanted to check it out IRL (in real life).

It is huge! and was built in 1957.

If I am not mistaken bath houses were made to look like temples after the war to calm people and give them hope for the future.

Satoshi says he wants to go bathe there after our COVID cases go down.

Nearby is this huge park called Higashi Chofu….

With all these fun things for kids to play on.

Even a real steam engine!

I love this house along side the rail tracks.

It looks like it is half of a barrack.

I love when the roses are blooming on their lanai.

The sunflowers in our neighborhood are huge too.

Taller than Satoshi.

This kochia plant in our neighborhood is getting huge too.

It has been overflowing out onto the roadway.

It reminded me of a caterpillar...ha!

Lunch from Hutte.

Weiner with a snap, salted butter anpan and chocolate nut scone.

13565 steps...legs felt like jelly afterwards but we were happy to be outside for a change.

this and that

Tokyo people...the traffic guy at a nearby pachinko parlor.

These guys were talking story...I was more interested in the NYPD police car parked...looks real too!

Since it is new month I bought some flowers for all the people that passed away in our lives...these sunflowers have also been brightening up the recent cloudy, rainy days.

We have been running out of ideas for lunch...dinner too for that matter.

Satoshi was happy that Kat let him drink beer on a weekday.

A sign of the season changing...Mount Fuji had some snow on top which was apparently a month earlier than last year.

All this rain has made the price of vegetables skyrocket.

As I was updating my recipe page, I think I might have erased some recipes, I hate how blogger updates soon after a change happens, I wasn't able to undo the deletion....boo!

I am a mosquito magnet…*scratch* *scratch*

Main branch of government is planning to have an election in a couple of weeks for the next Prime Minister...boo! which means all the media and the government is focused on this and not the pandemic...boo!

I hate the fact that they are not in session but will come out of “hiding” just for this...like the opposing parties said, "work on the pandemic from 9 to 5 and then you can talk about elections after those hours"...I think they should all be working on this pandemic 24-7…

Japan’s 2nd vaccine rate is only 49% and will slow down because they are running out of vaccines.

Hoping the "myu" variant from Colombia which seems to be resistant to vaccines doesn't increase in Japan especially since they've already found 2 cases...

Tokyo's numbers are still slowly going down, BUT severe cases and cases waiting for hospital beds are still high.

Hoping you all stay safe.

Have a nice weekend.

iwasakien

It is grape season here as well.

I wanted to get my hands on some Pizzutello Bianco (the pointy grapes that we tried in the past), and found some online from Iwasakien, a farm in Yamanashi prefecture.

Love the picture/poster they include when you open your box.

I purchased their smallest amount which was 2 kilos which turned out to be 3 large bunches.

My fridge is now filled with this box of grapes…whoo!

Unlike the pizzutello bianco we tried in the past which were seedless, these have seeds.

Still, very sweet and crisp though.

I'm glad I found some online and we'll be enjoying this for a couple of days. 

fig season

It's fig season...we have been enjoying them with our yogurt in the morning.

The one on the left is called Masui Dauphine and was grown in Aichi prefecture.

The one on the right is called Toyomitsuhime and was grown in Fukuoka prefecture.

I loved the red color of the Toyomitsuhime.

Both were delicious and I'm glad we got to try these.o 

this and that

Tried this chocolate & butter salt popcorn which I found at the 100 yen store.

The chocolate popcorn had more flavor than the butter salt pieces.

And the butter salt popcorn was on the verge of going stale.

Glad we tried this but wouldn't buy it again.

Pierre Herme teamed up with 7-eleven again and came out with a coffee eclair.

Coffee jelly (gelatin), coffee custard and coffee whipped cream.

This was delicious!

Not too sweet and lots of coffee flavor.

Since the start of September our temps have dropped!

TMI: I think I started “the change of life” between vaccine #1 and #2…kinda hard to tell if I have a fever or if it is a hot flash…

Tokyo's numbers are slowly going down, but it is still high we are definitely not out of the woods yet.

Satoshi and I were thinking about going to Hawaii so that I can renew my driver's license BUT our biggest hang up is that we would have to quarantine for 14 days after returning to Japan.

We wouldn't be allowed to use public transportation to get home either.

Which means we would need to walk home from Haneda airport without coming in contact with anyone?! or stay near the airport?! kind of impossible.

So right now we are waiting for everyone's numbers to go down and hoping that Japan will change their quarantine policy.

We hope you are all doing well.

Have a safe weekend.