bakudan bowl

Bakudan Bowl...I've only seen this on the menu at Ootoya, a popular chain restaurant, but apparently a lot of izakaya also serve this.

Ootoya's version has a raw egg in the middle of the bowl.

Bakudan literally means "explosive", "bomb"

Super easy and delicious.

Put your favorite toppings.

Here is what I used.

Cooked rice : 90 grams for me, 180 grams for Satoshi

Sashimi (bincho maguro (albacore tuna), and buri (yellow tail))

Tomatoes

Edamame

Kim chee

Natto

Yamagata style Dashi

To eat: 2 teaspoons dashi shoyu

Korean nori

NOTES: you could also use wasabi to eat this with, and "regular" shoyu and "regular" nori.

I mixed mine up and ate it with the nori, Satoshi ate his without mixing.

I'll make this again.

obihiro style pork bowls

Back in 2006, when we visited Hokkaido, we stumbled upon Pancho, a shop that served buta don (pork bowl)

Sliced pork that was cooked with a sweet-salty sauce and fanned out on top of a bowl of rice.

The shop only had this on their menu with the price varying on the portion of pork you chose.

The shop has since relocated to a different address in Obihiro and still serves their pork bowls.

Since we haven't been anywhere due to the pandemic, I thought we could "travel" to Obihiro through dinner.

Pancho serves their pork bowls with green peas, I served mine with green onion.

Obihiro style pork bowl : makes 2 servings : adapted from the internet

300 grams thinly sliced pork belly, cut into about 2-inch width pieces

1/4 cup shoyu (soy sauce)

3 tablespoons sugar

4 tablespoons mirin (sweet rice wine)

4 tablespoons sake (rice wine)

green onion, sliced

Fan out the pieces out into a pan and cook at medium heat.

With paper towel, mop up the oil that comes out from the meat as it cooks.

Spoon out about 2 or 3 tablespoons of sauce and flip the meat to get it caramelized

Serve over rice, top with green onion

NOTES: Next time, I would use a little thicker cut of pork belly.

There was a lot of oil that came out when cooking, so have paper towels ready!

This recipe make quite a lot of sauce, so spooning out a little amount at a time while cooking was a good choice.

Once you spoon the sauce over the meat, stay close by, because the sauce can burn quickly!

I cooked the pork in two pans because I wanted to fan out the pieces, not having any of them overlapping or folding.

I've also used this sauce when cooking fried tofu, I think you could use this with chicken or beef too.

things I'm liking

It's the end of the month, I'm cleaning out some photos and posting some random stuff I'm liking.

The weather was beautiful the other day, so I went to check out Aramaki Rose Park, I packed myself a bento, and went to check out the roses.

There was a slight rose fragrance in the air, though the rose bushes looked a little shorter than when we visited in the Spring.

I won these assorted coffees from Starbucks Japan. They were giving them away to 5000 people if you signed up for their online newsletter and as part of their celebration of 15 years in Japan...woot!

For this contest, you had to choose what you wanted to win. They were giving away a latte machine or a case of pre-made lattes or these coffees.

I figured everyone would choose the machine, and I don't have space for a case of pre-made lattes, so I went with the assortment.

I think it was a good choice. (Thank you!)

Muji's Rooibos Ginger Chai tea. Good with a little sugar and splash of milk, perfect in the evenings as rooibos is non-caffeinated.

Mini Reese's PB cups...they have no wrappers on them so be careful not to eat the whole bag in one sitting!

Muji's Amatriciana, just heat the bag in a pot of boiling water and pour over your favorite pasta.

I added a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and some ground pepper...delicious on a rainy day.

True North's almond pecan cashew clusters...serving size is 5. One cluster is the size of a sugar cube, let me tell you, they are hard to stop at just 5!

It is kinoko (mushroom) season here, I sauteed these (shimeji, eringi & maitake) with some chicken consomme, garlic, a little butter & chili pepper and served it over rice like a donburi (bowl).

Satoshi gave me the thumbs up for this dish.

La Bien Nommee's salted caramel with dark chocolate sauce which we got in France...this sauce gets firm in the refridge, but is still very delicious on hot scones.

Coco Ichibanya's curry furikake...starts off sweet and then the spiciness kicks in...good on rice!

A piece of cooked kabocha, mashed together with a hard boiled egg, some mayo and ground pepper...delicious on crusty baguette!

What are you liking these days?

p.s. Happy Halloween! if you're celebrating, be safe!

okara

One morning I saw someone making okara patties on television and it reminded me that I hadn't made them in awhile.

Okara are the "leftovers" after making tofu, the lees, it is also called "u-no-hana".

After going to the market, I sort of followed this recipe, this time adding a little minced chicken to make the patties.

After cooking them in some oil to brown, I made the thick sauce.

I sauteed some veggies (eringi, carrot, red bell pepper, spinach) in a non-stick pan without oil, then added the ingredients for the sauce, and thickened it up with a slurry then spooned the sauce over the patties.

It was so good with rice that Satoshi had seconds.

Whenever I buy okara, it comes with two 120 gram packages, so on another night, I made another okara recipe this time using this recipe.

Using similar ingredients as the patties, this turned out to be an okara scramble, of sorts.

I sauteed some minced chicken, diced onion, hijiki, carrot, red bell pepper, eringi and okara in some sesame oil.

When the minced chicken was cooked through and everything was broken up, I added a scrambled egg, some lettuce and some oyster sauce.

Okara is quite "sand"-like, so we ate this with a spoon. I think putting this over rice, like a donburi, would have been a better way to eat this than keeping the rice and scramble separate.

What have you been eating?

"don"

People are still looking for their loved ones, these stories are the hardest to watch or hear about.

On a positive note, one prefecture in the disaster area has given residents bicycles that were abandoned or parked illegally. Since gasoline is so limited, they figured that getting around by bicycle would be a good means of transportation.

They asked bicycle shop owners in the area to help "fix-up" these bicycles, adding air to tires, and started giving them away.

These days we've been eating a lot of rice dishes. I especially like donburi (rice bowl dishes) (because there are less dishes to wash afterwards).

I also like using pork.

Thinly sliced pork marinated in some pre-made yakiniku sauce.

Wilt some sliced cabbage then cook the pork. Top everything with green onions.

Another donburi was inspired from kimu-taku yakimeshi.

I sauteed some whittled gobo (burdock), carrots & zucchini in sesame oil and added some pork.

When everything was coated I added some tsubozuke & kim chee.

Put over rice and top with green onions.

Fast, easy and delicious, my kind of cooking. Hope you have a good week.

foodie thursday in osaka

Yesterday Satoshi had the day off so we decided to check out Krispy Kreme.

I know this place is from America, and that we have one on Maui, but I'd never tried them before, so I was interested in what the hype was all about.

We went early in the morning, before most people line up to buy boxes and boxes of these doughnuts.

I chose caramel walnuts and chocolate iced with sprinkles.

Satoshi chose chocolate iced custard filled and creamy cheese.

The creamy cheese had a marscapone cheese filling, it was also topped with some cream cheese & parmesan cheese...this one was tart almost like yogurt.

Most of their doughnuts are really soft almost gummy.

The icing is way too sweet too. I'm glad we tried them but don't think I would go back.

From Shinsaibashi we decided to walk back to Umeda and came upon an interesting light post which looked like a stick figure.

There were several in this area.

We also saw the new EV Taxi. EV stands for Electric Vehicle, apparently there are 50 of these running around Osaka.

Satoshi had to visit the dentist later in the day, so we decided to have a quick lunch. Since we were both in the mood for curry we decided to stop in at Tokumasa.

I had the cheese curry donburi while Satoshi chose their tsukemen. Tsukemen is where the soup/curry is served on the side and you dip your noodles in to eat.

Before having lunch, we stopped in at Boulangerie Takeuchi. I've been here in the past, and wanted Satoshi to try them. The couple of times we were in the area they were closed, so I'm glad they were open today.

We picked up their roast chicken sandwich, smoked salmon sandwich, an olive bread (the crescent), baked curry bread, pumpkin brioche (filled with pumpkin custard) & chocolate w/griotte cherry bread.

We tried them for our dinner along with some wine and a salad, everything was delicious.

Lots of eating, lots of walking though the weather was overcast and a little chilly.

It is Friday here, hope you have a nice weekend.

Krispy Kreme UPDATE: as of 2/2013 this shop has closed
2-1-24 Shinsaibashisuji
Chuo, Osaka
Phone: 0120.79.1072
Open 7:00-23:00

kyoto

Monday, snow dusted the trees and mountains of Kyoto.

There were flurries off and on and the wind was icy and blustery.

After visiting with MIL, we headed to Uji because I had heard they had a rabbit statue.

Since this year is the Year of the Rabbit, I thought it would be nice for us to do hatsumode (visit shrines and temples to ask for good wishes and thank the gods for everything for the past year) here.

At Mimurotoji, the statue of the rabbit has two holes at the base. Inside there is a marble egg.

You are supposed to reach inside and make the egg stand upright. If you do, it is supposed to help your back and legs be strong and "stand upright".

Satoshi and I tried this and were successful, hopefully we will both be healthy this year.

From Mimurotoji, it is about 500 meters to Uji.

We were surprised because every time we've taken a bus or train to get to Uji.

This time, we walked the distance and searched for somewhere to have lunch.

Being a national holiday, some places were closed, luckily we were able to have some cha-soba (noodles made from green tea) at Kawabun.

I had eaten here when my Aunty had visited several years ago.

Satoshi had never eaten here so we decided to have lunch here.

The lunch crowd had subsided, so we were able to get a table right away.

Satoshi chose the cha-soba (noodles made from green tea) teishoku which came with some nigiri sushi...1050 yen (about US$10.50)

I chose the don mini set, this came with cha-soba and a mini oyako donburi (chicken-egg bowl)...950 yen (about US$9.50)

On a day like Monday, the warm soba really hit the spot.

Satoshi was in the mood for some sweets so we stopped in at Surugaya and picked up some cha-dango (rice cakes made from green tea) and a kuri mochi (rice cake filled with sweet bean paste and chestnut)...total 575 yen (about US$5.75)

It was a very cold day, but we were able to visit with MIL and do hatsumode.

Surugaya
16 Uji-higashiuchi
Uji, Kyoto
Phone: 0774.23.8191

tokumasa

I should talk about the bad weather more often...because the next day will almost always be sunny (knock on wood).

Yesterday, Satoshi and I went to Umeda before his German class and had lunch at Tokumasa, which I've written about here.

Satoshi ordered the menchi katsu curry teishoku...all teishoku (set meals) here come with a bowl of rice with egg on top called tamago gohan.

As I've written previously, in Kansai (Western Japan), most noodles come with a bowl of rice.

I wasn't feeling like noodles, so I ordered their curry cheese donburi (bowl).

This was a large bowl filled with their spicy curry, cheese and green onions over rice.

Like before, this curry starts out sweet then the spices kick in.

At the end, be sure to cleanse your palate with some sweet takuan (pickled radish).

Curry was a great way to warm up on a nippy yet sunny day.

Have a great week.

osaka-tsuruga-obama

Sunday, the air was really REALLY bad. The kosa (yellow sand, dust cloud) from China was thick like fog. I swear it smelt like sulpher too. Makes me sick that we were breathing this stuff.

Anyway, Satoshi and I headed out to Fukui prefecture, this is in the Hokuriku (North area) of Japan, near the Japan Sea.

From Osaka, it took about 2 hours and it was raining by the time we reached our first stop, Tsuruga. We had some time before our connecting train, so we walked their covered shopping arcade and checked out the bronze statues.

These statues are of characters from the Japanese anime, "Ginga Tetsudo 999" (Galaxy Express 999) by Reiji Matsumoto. Though the artist did not grow up in Tsuruga, he donated some items when Tsuruga celebrated their 100 year anniversary in 1999.

Some food items we found in Tsuruga were tororo konbu (a thinly shaved kelp which is slightly seasoned)...400 yen (about US$4) and katapan (literally hard bread). This was a very VERY hard cracker.

Not sweet, but with lots flavor from the aonori (green seaweed)...be careful not to break your teeth on these. Apparently there were 10 shops that made this in Tsuruga, now there is only 1, Daruma-ya Kinsei...6 crackers for 250 yen (about US$2.50).

Daruma-ya Kinsei
72-11 Kanayama
Tsuruga, Fukui
Phone: 0770.22.5541

From Tsuruga we took a train to Obama. This city got a lot of attention when President Obama was running.

There are banners, even shops selling Obama items.

The area is often referred to as Wakasa, as it is near the Wakasa Bay.

Anyway, this area is the start of the saba kaido (mackerel road). When Kyoto was the capital of Japan, it is said that most food items (including mackerel) travelled from Wakasa to Kyoto.

You can find whole saba grilled on a stick at fish shops as well as all sorts of other fresh and dried fish.

Unfortunately by the time we got to Obama, the wind and rain had picked up.

We stopped for lunch at the Wakasa Fisherman's Wharf and also to get out of the rain. A great place to have some sushi, pick up some omiyage (souvenirs) or just to sit and look at the ocean.

The restaurant on the second floor, Kaikoen, serves many different teishoku (set meals). Satoshi had their kaisen donburi (seafood donburi)...1850 yen (about US$18.50). His lunch came with some crab miso soup, tsukemono (pickles) and some tsukudani (salty sweet preserved foods).

I chose the oroshi soba and mini amaebi donburi (northern shrimp)...1350 yen (about US$13.50) Oroshi soba is soba (buckwheat noodles) topped with grated daikon (long white radish) and green onions. My donburi had the northern shrimp, some egg and onions.

Everything was delicious and the seafood very fresh.

After lunch, we battled the wind and rain and walked to the Miketsukuni Food Culture Museum. This museum had all sorts of displays about Japanese food culture (only in Japanese). They also have a bathing area, where you can look out at the ocean while bathing), and a craft area.

The main craft of this area are lacquered chopsticks. Abalone shell and other items are lacquered onto wooden chopsticks. Then by sanding the lacquered chopsticks, what was embedded onto the chopsticks are revealed.

I'll continue with more of our adventure tomorrow, stay tuned!

Fisherman's Wharf
1-3-2 Kawasaki
Obama, Fukui
Phone: 0770.52.3111

Kaikoen (on the 2nd floor of Fisherman's Wharf)

Miketsukuni Food Culture Museum
3-4 Kawasaki
Obama, Fukui
Phone: 0770.53.1000

nakayama-dera

We've visited this area several times in past years, but I have never written about the ume (apricot) trees at Nakayama-dera. This temple has a bairin (the literal translation is apricot forest, but I think apricot orchard is a little more appropriate for this particular area), which we've visited pre-blog.

On Thursday, the sun was "in and out". The whole hillside was covered with light and dark ume, I particularly liked the darker pink flowers, as they stood out. There was also a little path in which you could walk through the orchard.

Since the past couple of days had been rainy, it was nice just to get out of the house. (Probably everyone that was there felt the same way.)

We had lunch at a nearby cafe called Effet (sorry no photos, was too hungry).

Satoshi had their seafood pasta set which came with lots of seafood, a salad, soup, coffee and all-you-can-eat assorted bread...1400 yen (about US$14).

I chose the steak donburi (steak bowl). This was a piece of sirloin grilled and served with lettuce, tsukemono (pickled veggies) and dollops of wasabi (Japanese horseradish) and oroshi (grated daikon). It also came with some shoyu (soy sauce)...my lunch only came with some miso soup...1500 yen (about US$15). Filling but delicious.

The dining area located at the back of the shop seats about 20 with a couple of seats out on the terrace area. They also sell cakes and baked items at the front of the shop.

After lunch, we went to the market across the street and bought some groceries.

Walking back to the station, we noticed a Japanese warehouse. It turned out that it was a coffee shop called Lamp.

Even though Satoshi had some coffee with his lunch, we decided to go inside to have a cup of coffee.

The inside was quite dark. Of course, since we were having coffee, we decided to check out their desserts. The desserts served at Lamp are made by a local patisserie called Kazu. We enjoyed their pudding roll (an eggy cake filled with cream and topped with custard) & napoleon (a puff pastry sweet with strawberries and cream). The cappuccino I ordered was different from the kind I normally have. This one had a lot of whipped cream on top and was served with a cinnamon stick.

The only thing I didn't care for was that they had a smoking area at the front of the shop which you needed to walk through to get to the non-smoking area. Other than that, their coffee and sweets were delicious.

I'm glad we were able to get out to see some ume (apricot). It was a great Thursday.

Effet
5-15-1 Nakasugi
Takarazuka, Hyogo
Phone: 0797.88.3030
Open: 10:00-23:00

Lamp
5-18-1 Nakasugi
Takarazuka, Hyogo
Phone: 0797.88.8853
Open: 7:00-23:00

p.s. it is White Day today, Happy White Day!

odds & ends

It is the end of the month which means that I need to clear out some photos.

Taste Delight's Maple Leaf Cream Cookies. Maple syrup flavored cookies with cream centers. Pulling them apart reminded me of Oreos, I loved the maple syrup flavor. The cream center wasn't maple syrup flavored, if it were I think it would have been too much.

My Smoothie's Superfruit acai smoothie, a product from Sweden have these great design boxes, the box folds up after drinking.

According to the outside of the box, the smoothie has 19 acai berries, 1 apple, 1/2 banana, 14 raspberries, 52 blueberries and 9 blackberries all in this tiny box. I loved the taste but didn't like the pulp, almost made me gag, I'm such a wuss.

Sekai no Kitchen's Tiramisu Latte, was very almond extract-y (is that even grammatically correct?) and combines marscapone and espresso. I don't think I would drink this one again.

Lipton's extra shot Chai....this one was more on the clove side, not sure if I would get this one again.

Dean & Deluca's Bretagne Caramel Walnut Ice cream....delicious. Lots of walnuts in caramel ice cream.

Awhile back, I bought these hotate (scallops) which were grilled at Daiei, 150 yen (about US$1.50) a stick. I also picked up some tako (octopus) and then made a donburi (bowl) with rice, lettuce, the hotate and tako, a little kim chee and yuk-hoe sauce, a fast delicious dinner.

I was surprised at how small the filet-o-fish at McD's is...it was the size of my palm! This sandwich reminds me of my grandma.

When we were growing up we would catch The Bus with my grandparents to Ala Moana shopping center. We would eat lunch at McDonald's and my grandma would always eat the filet-o-fish.

I recently defrosted some homemade portuguese sausage and paired it with kim chee fried rice for a quick weekend lunch.The month flew by so fast!

maruichi shokudo

I've passed this place many times when I've walked from the Ikeda station back to my home.

On weekdays, I've seen many office people going into this place. Though I have never seen a line out the door, for this place to attract office people it must be good. Why? Because this place is quite a distance away from the station, kind of out of the way.

The shop is tiny only 17 seats. Their sign says that they are Cantonese but they serve Szechuan mabo tofu...hmmm

In fact, their specialty is the mabo tofu.

You could order anything from their menu but you should order the mabo tofu as a donburi (bowl).

Choose your heat. Amakuchi (mild), chu-kara (semi-hot), karai (hot). Satoshi and I chose semi-hot. It comes in a heated stone bowl, bubbling and sizzling. (can you see the steam shooting out?)

The rice is on the bottom, getting koge (burnt), a nice kind of burnt though...the grains of rice get hard and chewy, definitely a good kind of stick to your teeth.

Semi-hot is actually perspiry hot...you don't feel it until after you swallow and it is an addicting kind of heat. I wonder if the lady sitting behind of Satoshi finished her order, she ordered hot...

No matter how long you blow on your food though, I can almost guarantee you will burn your tongue...I did.

For 750 yen (about US$7.50) the mabo tofu comes with a salad and egg drop soup...definitely worth it.

We'll be back.

Maruichi Shokudo
3-11-6 Jonan
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.750.2212
Lunch: 12:00-14:00, Dinner: 18:00-24:00
Days closed unknown (call ahead)

1 year service

On the 15th, we got together for my FIL's 1 year memorial service. Not only was it a memorial service, but we also put my FIL's ashes into the family grave.

The service was performed earlier than the actual day because of the schedule of the priest.

Up until now, we hadn't seen my MIL cry out loud, usually just dabbing tears here and there, but I guess this service upset her because she broke down. I guess because it would truly be her last "goodbye".

One tidbit, in Eastern Japan most keep the ashes in a ceramic container inside of the grave, but in Western Japan most put the ashes into a fabric bag so that the ashes can truly return back to the Earth.

Rewind to the 8th, we got together to see the new family grave. It was rebuilt in January so that my FIL's ashes would be able to be put in.

If you remember, we had gotten together back then to check out the Hyatt's Japanese restaurant, Touzan.

Well, after the service to see the new grave, we went back to Touzan for lunch and finalize our plans for the memorial service.

Satoshi and my BIL had the sushi lunch and my MIL and I had the tempura donburi lunch.

Luckily, the 1 year service went smoothly, my FIL's ashes went into the family grave. The days up until the service were rainy so we were glad that the weather was cooperative on that Sunday.

Lunch went smoothly too. Everyone enjoyed the boxed lunch and after a filling lunch, the immediate family went up to the lobby lounge to have dessert.

I can't believe how fast the year went by, today is the actual memorial day. Next year is the 3 year service. It is actually the 2 year but the Japanese have a complex way of counting things, which if you ask a Japanese they may or may not be able to explain.

I hope my MIL will start getting out more now that my FIL's ashes have been put into the grave, for the past year she has stayed at home because "she didn't want to leave my FIL at home by himself". I guess it may take some time though...