frito pie

Have you ever had frito pie?

I don't recall ever trying this.

It's not that Fritos were my favorite when I lived in Hawaii, but when you don't have access to things they somehow turn into things you crave especially since Japan doesn’t have Fritos

Nowadays most trips to Hawaii I buy a package of the Honey BBQ Fritos.

This trip to Hawaii, I also bought the Original so I could try making frito pie

Some recipes tell you to bake the whole thing, others put it together before eating.

I don't really care for soggy chips, so I put it together before eating.

Made a small batch of chili

Then topped the fritos with the chili, cheese, some avocado and diced red onion

So ono! kinda like nachos

Glad I tried this.

this and that

Most days this week it's been rainy, super warm, super humid and super gloomy because of the effects of a typhoon, Hinnamnor (number 11) that hovered over Okinawa for almost 3 or 4 days?!

To keep cool, I tried this Godiva chocolate frappe from Family Mart...super chocolatey with lots of chocolate bits in it...430 yen (tax included)

Bomboloni from Bakery Alice...I thought bomboloni is supposed to have custard in it?...180 yen (tax included)

Was disappointed that this didn't, it was just a donut made from brioche dough which was tasty but I was kinda looking forward to the custard.

Ji Pai flavored chips...Ji Pai is a Taiwanese street food, a huge flat piece of fried chicken.

These chips made by Yamayoshi was 5 spiced chicken flavored..so ono!

I think there are places in Harajuku and/or Shin Okubo maybe even nearby that sell Ji Pai...hope to try the real thing one day.

Keema Curry chips by Calbee another ono flavor.

Not too spicy, just lots of beefy curry flavor

And yet another good flavor were these Spicy Korean Nori flavored chips by Calbee.

Sesame oil, nori and chili...mmm!

My host mom sent us some Shine Muscat on Wednesday (thank you!).

I think the variety is different from the one Satoshi bought because the orbs are smaller.

The yen has taken off and was 144?! Krazy.

Japan's daily case numbers have dropped significantly...hoping it is because they are truly decreasing and not because of the "new counting system".

The new rules for entering Japan started Wednesday... go through travel agent, sign an affidavit, get visa, make sure you’ve had at least 3 vaccinations, welcome to Japan...still hoping Japan will fully open soon.

Have a safe weekend. 

taste test

Short post today.

Yesterday, we tried the 4 new flavor wannabes...my fave was the biscuit and gravy. Satoshi's was the reuben.

Thanks Deb, for giving us these, it was fun to try.

things I'm liking (disliking)

Some random items...starting with disliking...Hostess' Donettes.

I don't remember them being so dry and full of air pockets...

Kinda disliking this Dunkin' Donuts' coffee...kinda too bitter, lots of acid too.

Really liking these KIND bars.

Especially delicious was the Almond Coconut bar, really chewy and just the right amount of sweetness.

Godiva Chocolate Truffle coffee. I am not too fond of flavored coffees because most times they are "fake" tasting.

But this one is truly chocolatey, and if you add in milk, it is really creamy.

Thanks BFF!

First time trying almond milk, but it was delicious.

I bought the unsweetened version (chocolate too), perfect in my morning coffee.

Tapatío hot sauce flavored Doritos.

These chips will totally make your fingers orange, nose run and you may even cough a little, but in a good way.

What have you been liking? disliking?

things I'm liking (disliking)

Starting with disliking...I had seen this on Candy Blog and wanted to try it.

Well, big disappointment.

The chocolate was bloomed, on top of that the peanut butter was dried out, almost chalky..blah!

I thought maybe it had to do with the expiry date...nope, that was fine. I guess it just didn't travel too well over the Pacific.

Moving onto liking...If you look at my posts on beer, you'll see I prefer the dark beers.

I recently spotted this dark chocolate bar and had to try it.

Vosges' Smoke & Salt Caramel Bar is delicious.

Using Rogue Ale's Chocolate Stout, Alderwood smoked salt, burnt caramel and 70% dark chocolate, the bar has a nice snap and the caramel that oozes out is dark too.

I like the balance between sweet and salty.

Also liking this sesame candy by Joyva.

It is very hard so I would suggest breaking off little pieces and letting the hard candy melt before chewing on the sesame seeds.

And lastly, these Munchies. Jalapeno Cheddar, get ready for orange fingers and the spiciness tickles the back of your throat.

What have you been liking?

things I've been enjoying

Tirol chocolate has teamed up with Frito-Lay, chocolate covered cheetos...different but soothes the sweet/salty cravings....128 yen (about uS$1.28)

Found this Ritter Sport bar at Carrefour, Caramel Nuts, I checked out Ritter Sport's site, can you believe that this bar is made in Germany but has never been sold in Germany? Amazing!

Caramel cream with hazelnuts and rice krispies....it made for gooey s'mores...298 yen (about US$2.98)

Pafonte's cream pan (bread)...a cute tiger shape filled with delicious custard cream...150 yen (about US$1.50)

Ooh, and the Lavender Earl Grey Tea Lattes are back at Starbucks...yeah! (short 370 yen (about US$3.70))

What have you been enjoying lately?

potato chips

I love potato chips, but the oil that most companies use aren't really good for you (that is probably why they taste so good!)

Anyway, I was reading La Fuji Mama and she was making sweet potato fries in her oven. Since I didn't have sweet potatoes (though I will try her recipe soon), I decided to try making potato chips in mine.

I sliced two "danshaku" potatoes thinly (note: be careful and don't nip the tip of your finger with the knife or in my case, finger nail...yipes! thank goodness there was the finger nail protruding...)

Dry potato slices and coat well with 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Arrange on broiler pan or piece of foil. I then sprinkled some salt and some Herb de Provence.

Stick into 220 C (425 F) oven for 30 minutes.

Makes a great snack or nice accompaniment to a salad.

NOTE:Growing up in Hawaii, I only knew of red potatoes, russett and yukon gold. In Japan there are several varieties of potato, the ones mostly seen in the markets are danshaku and may queen. The may queen variety is mostly used in stews and curries.

It is another holiday here, Autumn Equinox.

food...nature...blast of heat...repeat

Sunday had to be most sauna-like day to date...this year. Still, we didn't want to stay at home, so we decided to check out the falls in Minoo Park.

From the Hankyu Minoo station to the falls it is 2.8 kilometers. Of course we couldn't just go straight to the falls, on the way we stopped into Hashimoto-tei for lunch.

Satoshi had the loco moco (900 yen about US$9), he knew when he ordered it that he may be disappointed, but ordered it anyway. When his plate arrived, he knew from the aroma that it would be different. He says that Kaka'ako Kitchen's is still his favorite.

I ordered the black curry (900 yen about US$9). This spicy concoction was delicious and had a lot of punch. It may look like a lot of rice, but with the amount of spiciness, you need it.

After re-fueling and cooling off a bit, we checked out the Konchukan (insectarium). The admission was 270 yen (about US$2.70) per person. Can you believe, that for all the years we have lived here, we had never stepped inside this place? We were glad we did though, there were lots of yucky bugs on display as well as a live butterfly area. I was amazed at how some of the butterflies had numbers written on their left wing--I think this is how they keep track of them.

From the insectarium, we continued walking toward the falls. There was another museum of sorts, but I can't tell you what it was (Satoshi didn't know what it was either)--at least there was no admission.

Right across the unknown museum, we stopped into yet another cafe (Yamamoto Coffee) along the way to keep cool. Satoshi had some coffee and I had an iced coffee (600 yen a piece--about US $6 each).

Just as we came out of the cafe and started to make our way up a slight incline, there was a man giving out samples of yamaguri (mountain chestnuts). It turns out that these are from Shiga prefecture, so they weren't local. But they were really easy to peel and delicious. We bought a bag to take home (600 yen or about US$6).

Finally, after 2 hours, we made it to the falls. There were many people in the waters below the falls. After re-energizing in front of the waterfall's spray and seeing a sign that said "beware of snakes" (eww), we started to head back.

You could hear tons of semi (cicada) in the trees and every so often a slight warm breeze would blow.

There were bursts of komorebi (sunbeams) which came through the trees.

Halfway out of the park, we were hungry again. So, this time, we stopped into Per Caffe Bianco. This cafe is right across the street from the train station.

I ordered the zuccotto (850 yen about US$8.50 comes with a drink) and Satoshi had a margherita pizza (1100 yen about US$11). Satoshi said that the pizza was really good, with lots of garlic in it.

The zuccotto had slices of grapefruit, lots of nuts and lots of cream inside. It went nicely with my cute cappuccino.

I think in the U.S. this is called latte art, but since this was a cappuccino...I love cappuccino art!

Not wanting to go out again to find dinner, we bought some ingredients to try a recipe which I saw on Deb's blog. (One thing you should know about us, no matter how much we eat during the day, we almost never skip a meal!)

Deb's ahi avocado towers with sesame-cilantro emulsion were delicious! I adapted the recipe and added diced tomatoes to 1/4 of a chopped red onion, diced 5 ounces (150 grams) of maguro (tuna), sprinkled some red alaea salt, put 1 tablespoon of shoyu, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil and a pinch of black sesame seeds.









For the avocado layer, I used 2 small avocadoes. I couldn't find lime, so I used lemon juice from half a lemon without the zest.

As for the emulsion, I didn't have much cilantro, so we just used the few stalks that were on our lanai, and I added 1 tablespoon of EVOO and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil. I didn't do the crab layer. On top of that, we couldn't find won ton wrappers or tortilla chips, so we ate our towers with okara (soy lees) chips. The chips were too small to layer onto, so we just ate them on the side. I've crushed and sprinkled these okara chips onto Chinese Chicken Salad as they have the same flavor as won ton pi chips.

I was so happy to be able to use my ring molds. Since I don't have 2 ring molds the same size, Satoshi's tower was bigger than mine and he was impressed as to how the tower was put together. The "leftovers" I put into a bowl, but that was eaten up too.

Boy, we sure ate a lot today! At least we bonded with nature while doing so.

Hope you enjoyed today as much as we did, have a great week!

Yamamoto Coffee
2-28 Minoo-koen
Minoo, Osaka
Phone: 072.722.3477
Open 9:00-18:00

Per Caffe Bianco
1-8-1 Minoo
Minoo, Osaka
Phone: 072.725.7111
Open 9:00-21:00
Closed on Mondays (UPDATE: hours have changed to 11:00-21:00)

sigh....yeah!

So, I'm trying to lessen our clutter. On the other hand, Satoshi isn't...

You may remember this post, or not.

On a recent trip to my MIL's, my BIL found these baseball cards while throwing some other things away. These were from Calbee in the 70's, I couldn't believe they ate this many chips!

There were stacks and stacks of cards. Not all were from Calbee though, some were from Nippon Ham (a Japanese ham/sausage maker like Oscar Myer except no bologna) and some from a baseball magazine.

Satoshi was so happy that his brother kept them for him to see.

When I asked to see them, I was strictly told NOT to mix the order...geez!

As he stashed them away in a cupboard, he smiled, "I have lots of treasures."

Though I was happy he was able to re-connect with these, this is how I heard his statement ....."now we have more clutter".

UPDATE: it turns out that MIL will finally pay the restaurant for the 49 day service. Apparently it was all misunderstanding between us, the funeral home and the restaurant. What the funeral home told us, what the funeral home told the restaurant and what the restaurant told us were all different. (actually, I don't think it really was the funeral home's fault and think the whole mess should be blamed on the restaurant).

The restaurant told us that if we "needed" them to serve the food, we should have asked to have some servers added. They said that the funeral home was aware of these conditions. And that they didn't receive an order from the funeral home for beer and tea. Anyway, MIL didn't pay the full amount of the bill. She gave herself a 20% discount and paid that amount instead....I didn't think she should have paid the amount she did, but I give her credit for doing what she did! Way to go, MIL!

alternative to the bubble gum

Monday is Taiku no hi (Sports Day), it is a national holiday. So in commemoration of this day, I want to talk a little bit about...baseball.

In America, do the baseball cards still come with that really hard piece of gum? or do they just sell the cards without the gum?

In Japan, we get our baseball cards with....chips! Calbee, a large snack maker sells these 22 gram bags of chips with a packet of two cards attached to the bag.

Throughout the year, Calbee puts out 3 phases of the cards and you can get all sorts of players and stats, cards with hologram coatings, pretty exciting stuff...and so far, we've never gotten the same card! They also have a soccer version for you J-League fans.

Well, the play-offs (which the call "the climax series") start this Friday. But I need to rant....there are only 12 teams in the whole Japanese pro baseball league, I think the MLB has double that or maybe more? No reason to have play-offs here! they should just make more teams so there is more competition and more chances for the unknowns to get out there and play the game. They have only recently started having inter-league play where the teams of the 6 Pacific league teams get to play against the 6 Central League teams which is quite interesting and exciting. Up until then it was Pacific vs. Pacific and Central vs. Central and only during the "world series" do the two separate leagues' teams match up against each other,

So I shake my head as the play-offs start and hope that the Tigers (in 3rd place) can come from behind and whip everyone's butts to get a chance to play in the Japan's version of the world series.

Go Tigers!

p.s. Satoshi has been saying he wants to become a housewife and that I should go to work. I know why he says this....it is because our tv can view two baseball games (the play-offs) at the same time (one side with sound) and is being televised while he is at work! (as if watching the game was the only thing I did around here!)

odds & ends

A new blog friend, Nate, of HwnPakeOkinawa, is a newcomer to blogging. He emailed me to give him advice on starting a blog. Living in Okinawa, he often craves foods from home (Hawaii) and found that the only way to get them, would be to make them. If you are from Hawaii or interested in Hawaii, you gotta check out his blog, "ono" (delicious) stuff on it. UPDATE: the author passed away and this blog is no longer public.

Last year, I wrote about this Japanese sweets shop that is in our neighborhood, Korakudo, which I posted about here. Well, it is nama-choco daifuku season and also kuri daifuku (chestnut with a soft rice cake around it and sweet bean paste). Today, I wanted to get some kuri daifuku, but they were out, so I got their inaka manju with kuri inside (steamed bean cake with chestnut inside) instead. This was really good, hardly any outer rice cake, lots of sweet bean paste and a huge chestnut in the middle.

Since finding my precious bottle of hoisin sauce, which I posted about here, I decided to make another favorite of mine, the dressing for Chinese chicken salad. I often make another version which doesn't call for hoisin sauce and usually use it for green salads without the chicken topping.

Tonight's dinner was gyoza (pot stickers), nira (chive) gyoza and ebi (shrimp) gyoza (which I bought), with a spicy dipping sauce made from shoyu (soy sauce), vinegar and rai-yu (chinese chili oil), a salad with the chinese salad dressing, a mixture of genmai (brown rice) and haigamai (partially polished brown rice) and rakkyo (pickled shallots).

Chinese Salad Sauce: from "Recipes Please..."
4 tablespoons catsup
2 tablespoons vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons sesame seed oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Ajinomoto
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
Dash of pepper

1. Boil all ingredients together.
2. Cool and refrigerate

Serving suggestion: use any type of veggies: lettuce, cucumber, cabbage, watercress. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seed. Garnish with meats such as char siu(Chinese roast pork), shredded chicken or even crushed won ton chips. Can be served as a main dish.

NOTES: I left out one ingredient from the recipe, Ajinomoto. Ajinomoto is MSG (monosodium glutamate).

Also, since I don't like to fry too much--makes the kitchen too messy and stinky, I found this chip that tastes really close to won ton chips called Kirazu Age or fried okara. Kirazu is another name for Okara and is also known as Unohana--this is the lees that form when making tofu (soy bean curd).

I smashed up the okara chips and sprinkled them onto my salad. You can also make your own won ton chips by frying up the won ton wrappers--Just slice the wrappers to the width of chip that you want, and deep fry until golden brown.

Enjoy the weekend!