mos burger

MOS Burger came out with these tiny sweet potato mochi thingies.

I think it is similar to the ones that Jenny tried.

The outside is a chewy mochi and the inside is a sweet potato paste.

They deep fry it before serving...260 yen (tax included) for 3 pieces

I was surprised these were not hard after they were fried.

Would get this again.
 

prize

Have you ever ate the ice bar called Gari Gari Kun?

If I'm not mistaken, "gari gari" is the onomatopoetic sound from your teeth biting into an ice bar...

Anyway, the other night, Satoshi was eating a Gari Gari Kun and he saw this on the stick.

I brought the stick along with the receipt back to the store that I bought the ice bar from and they gave me another bar.

Cool, yeah?!

re-use

I think that sometimes I buy desserts just for their containers.

Of course what's inside is delicious and pretty, but if the containers can be re-used, I'm all excited to try and fill them up.

The first two photos are of desserts we got from MIOR, a shop in our shopping arcade, pretty yeah??

The containers are glass and hold about 3/4 cup of liquid.

Perfect when you want just a little something sweet.

I recently used up a NOH Foods haupia packet that I had for sometime now along with some Jell-O chocolate pudding.

I also crushed some shortbread in-between the layers & on top.

I also tried a kanten recipe which I saw in a free newspaper that I picked up at the market.

Here's the recipe so you can try making your own dessert if you'd like:
Strawberry Milk Kanten adapted from free newspaper at market

4 containers that hold 3/4 cup
1 packet agar-agar powder (4 grams)
200 cc water
150 cc skim milk
1 tablespoon condensed milk
7 strawberries, tops off & rinsed

Slice some strawberries & chop up the rest, set aside
Add condensed milk to skim milk, stir and set aside.
In a pot, add the water and agar-agar powder, bring to a boil stirring with a wooden spoon
When it comes to a boil, cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
Turn off heat and add milk mixture, stir.
Add sliced strawberries to containers
Spoon in warm milk kanten mixture and top with chopped strawberries
Try to divide milk mixture as evenly as possible.
Put into refridge to set.
Enjoy.

NOTES: I had envisioned having the strawberry slices line the sides of the glass but when I poured my milk mixture in, they all floated up. I think if you want to hold the strawberries to the side of the glass, the pieces have to be thicker.

Also, kanten's texture is firmer than gelatin, so don't freak out when you eat this, it is kind of dense, not wiggly-jiggly.

The original recipe sets the mixture in a pan, if you want to make this in a pan, the measurements are 15 cm x 12 cm (about 5 inch x 4 inch)

The original recipe also uses 200 cc (1 cup) cream but I lightened it up using skim milk, though I only had 150 cc (3/4 cup).

The original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of condensed milk, I think I should have used the 3 because the version I made wasn't sweet at all. It wasn't bad, but I would've liked something a little sweeter.

I have more packets of kanten, so I'm definitely making this again.

UPDATE: perfect sweetness with the 3 tablespoons of condensed milk

splendido

Satoshi recently won a trip to the Ritz Carlton's dessert buffet. His department apparently achieved their sales goals so they had a dinner party at the Ritz Carlton and a drawing for various prizes.

The certificate was only good for a weekday (since the price of the buffet goes up on the weekends), so we planned on a day when Satoshi would be off, which was yesterday.

When we got to the buffet there were tons of women all chattering and eating various desserts. Drinks off the menu were unlimited and included in the cost of the buffet. You could also order freshly made pizza but that was at an additional cost of 800 yen (about US$8) for a 6 inch pizza.

This was our first round: Kat (macaron (pistachio, lemon & raspberry, chocolate covered mousse). Satoshi (baked alaska, chocolate orange mousse, crepe filled with coconut, banana and custard topped with chocolate gelato). Kat (cafe latte), Satoshi (black coffee).




The second round: Kat (pistachio bavaroise, red fruit baked cheesecake, bread pudding, churro with chocolate sauce, dark chocolate truffle), Satoshi (coconut pearls, peach pudding & chocolate sesame cake). Kat (lapsang souchong), Satoshi (earl grey). This was my first time trying lapsang souchong tea, it reminded me of pur-erhl tea only smokier. I liked it following all those sweets.









The third round: fresh fruits and dried fruits which we shared. Satoshi (assam).


There were many more desserts which we didn't get to try, we were quite full, but it was a great experience.

Splendido dessert buffet @ The Ritz Carlton, 1F
2-5-25 Umeda
Kita-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6343.7000
Monday-Friday 14:00-16:30 (from 2900 yen about US$29)
Saturday, Sunday & Holidays 14:30-16:30 (from 3900 yen about US$39)
on our way home, we stopped in Breeze Breeze, Satoshi hadn't seen it and it was just about the time for the marionette to move.

We also stopped in to look at an art exhibition by Teppei Sasakura at Daimaru. Tamakikat had told me about it so I was looking forward to seeing it, I had never seen his works before but there was something about them that was really touching. He has a style in which he paints things which you can see through. It is hard to explain, maybe you can google around to see some of his works on the web. (Thanks for the tip Tamakikat!)

It was a great day. It is a 3-day weekend here, hope you enjoy yours.

verrine

There are desserts that are popular in Japan now called verrine. I couldn't find much information on this, but have a feeling it is anything layered (sweet or savory) into a glass.

With my leftover haupia and some sweet potato, I tried making a verrine of a sweet potato haupia pie.

For the sweet potato layer, I mixed 1/2 of a skinny sweet potato with 1 tablespoon of plain yogurt in the food processor.

For the mac nut & cookie layer, I whizzed some mac nuts with some vanilla flavored cookies.

This dessert was delicious, not too sweet or rich like the sweet potato haupia pies we have in Hawaii (Satoshi thought it should have been sweeter). Too bad I didn't try making haupia when I had beni-imo (purple sweet potato) from Okinawa, would have made the dessert look more colorful.

Hope you have a nice weekend.

what I did...

I wanted to share with you what I did with a can of coconut milk.

Earlier this year, I found some tri-colored tapioca at the gourmet supermarket. When I saw this, I immediately thought of coconut pearls, the dessert you get at some Chinese restaurants in Hawaii.

I love this dessert. It is sweet and coconutty. Most times when you get this at the Chinese restaurant, the bowl is ice cold and so is the "soup"...delicious.

I googled and found a recipe on the Internet. It sounded easy. It was, once I prepared the tapioca.

Get this, the package said I could boil the tapioca for an hour or soak the tapioca overnight then boil them to the softness that I wanted....I chose the boiling for one hour.

Doesn't the tapioca look like candy? I loved the colors. (This was my first time with tapioca, is it supposed to have a chewy center? It reminded me of mochi.)

So, with the can of Chaokoh coconut milk, I decided to be oinky and make two desserts out of them (because two is better than one!).

the first...coconut pearls...the second...haupia.

Haupia is a coconut pudding served in Hawaii. My favorite combination is haupia with chocolate, preferably with a flaky crust...yum!

Here's both recipes if you'd like to give them a try.

Coconut pearls adapted from the Internet (makes about 6: 1/2 cup servings)

1/2 cup tapioca, follow package directions
1-1/2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 cup coconut milk

After cooking your tapioca, get the "soup" ready.
In a pot, add the water and sugar and heat until sugar dissolves.
Add the milk and warm.
When warm, turn off heat and add coconut milk.
Chill mixture and tapioca separately for at least an hour.
Add tapioca just before serving, as it will turn mixture bitter.
Serve as is or with diced fruits like honeydew or cantaloupe.

Haupia adapted from "Sam Choy's Sampler" (2 "Sam" portions or 8-10 "Kat" portions (about 2 teaspoons each))

1 cup coconut milk
2-1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2-1/2 tablespoons sugar
pinch salt

Mix everything in a pot until sugar is dissolved.
Heat on medium stirring constantly, use a whisk to make sure everything is incorporated without lumps.
When the mixture begins to thicken, turn off heat.
You can serve warm or chill for at least an hour.
Good with fruits too.

NOTES: For the coconut pearls, the original recipe states not to boil the coconut milk as it will make the "soup" very oily. The haupia is the real deal! beats those NOH haupia packets. Overall, both recipes were delicious, easy and fast!

warming up

Yesterday was raining off and on. It was brrr...cold. The condensation would come out from your mouth when you talked.

Though I made this dessert for Sunday's dinner, I wanted to share it with you on this cold day.

I love apple crisp. It is even better with fresh blueberries in it. I've made it before and posted about it here.

We recently received a box of apples from Satoshi's friend (Thank you!). What would you do with 36 apples? Well, I gave half of it away. We've been eating some for breakfast and I also made an apple crisp with blueberries.

1 apple, sliced into bite sized pieces
1 handful of blueberries

Topping adapted from Ellie Krieger
1/4 cup flour
2/3 cup muesli
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
20 grinds fresh cinnamon
1/4 cup EVOO

Mix the fruits with the topping mixture. Bake in a oven-safe dish at 350F (180C) for 40 minutes.
Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Though the ice cream is cold, the warm crisp is definitely a nice way to warm up.

This morning, I made some bread pudding using a chocolate orange french bread, blueberries and a sprinkle of vanilla sugar on top. Out of the oven it was bubbly and hit the spot on a cold morning.

Hope you are staying warm where you are.

making my own sunshine

I had several unfinished drafts, so I put them together for this post.

The weather has been sunny then turning cloudy or just plain cloudy and cold. I was feeling blue with the dreary weather, I guess people from Hawaii do need sun...so I made some sunshine.

Last week, I tried the recipe for Creme de Chocolat on the side of the Spicy Mariebelle cocoa can. It was really easy to make, just measure the cocoa and add the amount of water and follow the rest of the instructions on the side of the can. After the two hours, I made some whipped cream using what little cream that I had in the fridge. The creme de chocolat was quite stiff and reminded me of ganache. It was just enough to soothe my sweet tooth. Plus, the chili in the chocolate gave it a kick--coffee went nicely with this.

Yesterday, I made my own bark with some chocolate and trail mix. I tempered the chocolate then stirred in the trail mix. The chocolate was dark but not a very high percentage, so it was a little sweet. And the trail mix was a little salty, so it matched nicely with the chocolate.

Take a bite and you get powdered sugar all around your mouth.

Put the whole thing in your mouth and a little powdered sugar goes down the wrong pipe. You let out a little cough and powdered sugar goes everywhere.

Flaky, buttery with the crunch from the nuts paired with a glass of ice-cold milk...the ultimate treat.

These are my memories of this cookie. My mom uses toasted macadamia nuts in her version.

Melting moments, Russian tea cookies, Snowballs...whatever you call these cookies, I call them delicious.

I cut up some yomogi (mugwort) bread and added some dried figs to make a warm and fuzzy treat. (We actually had this for breakfast.)

Whew, that was a lot of sunshine...I'm feeling better, how about you?

mini honey toast

Have you ever had honey toast? I have been seeing it here --Kathy and Reid both had it at the same restaurant in Hawaii, but I've also seen it around Japan too. I googled and found out that a karaoke place that has rooms around Tokyo has this on their menu. You can check out what they have on their menu here. (Some are huge-mongous!)

From what I've seen, for the "plain" version, they use one loaf of bread (yep, a whole loaf), honey and vanilla ice cream. In Japan, a loaf of bread is quite small by U.S. standards, it only yields 4-6 slices depending on how thick or thin you slice it. I was quite surprised by this when I first moved here because in Hawaii we buy loaves of bread with about 20 or more slices in a bag. I was also surprised to hear that in Tokyo they only have 4 slices per package but in Osaka we can buy packages with 4, 5 or 6 slices.

So getting back to the honey toast...having never tried this before, I wanted to try one. Unfortunately, I don't like to karaoke, and probably wouldn't be able to (and shouldn't) eat a whole one by myself, so I figured I should try to make a mini version. I couldn't find a small plain loaf but instead found a mini raisin loaf. This loaf was 6 inches long by 3 inches tall. I split it in half then cut out the innards of the loaf, leaving a little bread to serve as the bottom of the "bowl". (The other half of the bread will be tomorrow's toast for breakfast.)

I then toasted the bread and the innards for about 4 minutes.

Then I melted a pat of butter with 1 tablespoon of honey. When the toast was ready, I put back the innards into the bread "bowl" then drizzled some honey mixture. Then I took 60ml (1/2 of the container) of Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream, put that on top of the toast and drizzled the rest of the honey mixture on top. I also made myself a cappuccino.

NOTES: Since I used raisin bread this reminded me of bread pudding or french toast. Is it supposed to taste like that...Kathy? Reid? anyone who has tried this? The toasted bread was crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, drizzled with honey and the melting vanilla ice cream it satisfied my sweet tooth. I had thought it would be a sickening kind of sweet but it was actually just right.

I can't wait to make this again when Satoshi can try it.

have a halvah

After reading Kathy's post about halvah, I was interested to find out more about it.

I googled and found an explanation and a recipe that seemed similar to the halvah that she had.

This recipe is very simple and quick.

Halvah adapted from Recipezaar #134298

3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup tahini (sesame seed paste)
1 pinch salt
1-1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 cup coconut
1/8 cup macadamia nuts
1/8 cup cacao nibs

dark chocolate (for drizzling)

Preheat the oven to 375F (190C)
Cream the butter and tahini
Add the salt and sugar, blend until smooth
Sprinkle flour and mix well
Mix in the coconut, macadamia nuts and nibs--the dough will be stiff
Lightly grease 2 7-inch pie pans or a shallow baking dish
Press dough into the bottom with a thickness not more than 1/4-inch
Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown
Cut while warm, if not it will crumble while trying to cut later
Drizzle melted dark chocolate

NOTES: I got lazy and just scooped the dough out into little cookies onto my baking sheet. The batter spread quite a bit, so after they came out of the oven, I used a butter knife to "form" my bars.

I really liked this, it reminded me of peanut butter kind of shortbread, very flaky with lots of texture from the coconut, mac nuts and nibs.

foodie saturday

Today was HUMID! it actually smelled like a sweaty locker room outside...blah.

After my lesson, I met Satoshi in Umeda. We planned on checking out a popular burger place, but since it was going to take 25 minutes to get our food, we decided to go down the street to a Vietnamese restaurant called La Verdue du Vietnam. (don't they have the cutest soy sauce container?!)

My friend Kazumi first introduced me to this restaurant about 3 or 4 years ago and I was surprised that they were still in business. (If traffice isn't steady, a lot of restaurants close within 6 months to a year here) At the time we visited, it wasn't too popular and there weren't many customers. Today, there was steady traffic, especially for a Saturday, in the business district.

I'm going to apologize in advance, the menu wasn't in english, so I don't have the proper spelling for the foods that we ate.

Satoshi had the Pho heo fe, a spicy minced beef topping hearty beef broth and flat noodles. It came with a shrimp roll and com tai com, rice cooked with lemon grass and chicken.

I chose the banh mi, a chewy french baguette filled with pickled veggies, liver pate and ham. This was similar to the sandwiches I get in Hawaii at Ba-le. The sandwich came with a salad topped with chopped peanuts and a light dressing and also a cup of spicy broth. Yum!

Every dish comes with either lotus tea or Ca phe sua da (vietnamese coffee). We both chose the vietnamese coffee. The sweet concoction had a chocolatey-coconutty flavor...delicious!

Even after eating a large lunch, we were still craving something sweet, so we went to Palet d'Or. I've been here several times in the past, but this was the first time for Satoshi to try their desserts.
He had their Noir, chocolate ice cream, meringue, nuts and a berry puree at the bottom--rich chocolatey goodness!

I had their Rouge, this was a large strawberry macaron in a pool of red wine gelatin and berries served in a large martini glass. There was also a large scoop of berry sorbet and it was decorated with clear sugar with dried strawberries encased in it. The tartness and sweetness balanced each other perfectly!

Dinner was a recipe I got from Nate awhile back. This recipe uses a whole bottle of Kona Brewing Company's Big Wave Golden Ale. (Thanks Nate!)
(the bottle caps have cool Hawaii/English on them, this one said "lolo" = crazy.)








The recipe was easy, I should have served it with garlic bread like the recipe said, but since I forgot to buy some and was too lazy to go back out to get some (too humid), I served it over pasta.

Big Wave Golden Ale Steamed Clams -- Kona Brewing Company
1 oz. butter
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/4 cup diced onion
1 bottle Big Wave Golden Ale (12 oz)
4 oz clam juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
juice of 1 lemon
2 lbs manila clams

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Add the garlic and onion, cook 1 minute, stirring so as not to burn.
Warm beer to room temperature then add to saucepan.
Add sugar and lemon juice, bring liquid to a boil. Turn heat to simmer 5 minutes.
Place clams in a saute pan and pour sauce over clams.
Cook until all clams have opened, serve with garlic bread.

NOTES: Soak your clams in water with a tablespoon of salt at least overnight in the refrig, this is supposed to let the clams relax and lets them spit out the sand. Since I didn't have clam juice, I added water. After adding the clams to the sauce, I cooked it for about 5 minutes. It was my first time cooking clams and I was excited as the clams "popped" open like popcorn! I added a couple grinds of pepper and garnished with parsley. With the amount of soup that this recipe makes, you'll need lots of bread to mop it up with.

La Verdure du Vietnam
1-15-14 Utsubohommachi Nishii Bldg.
Hommachi, Osaka
Phone: 06-6444-3798
Open everyday

UPDATE: as of March 2010, this restaurant is now closed

We had a nice foodie Saturday, hope you are enjoying the weekend!

what? another election?

Well, it turned out that it was too hot and humid to go galivanting yesterday, but since I still needed some things for dinner, I did go grocery shopping while Satoshi went to his German class. The supermarket was packed! I guess everyone knows that it is a great place to cool off.

I decided to make a variation of the reisei pasta that I made the other day. Instead of tuna, I added tako(octopus), some lemon juice and lettuce. Very refreshing!




And for dessert, I made mini blueberry clafoutis. I used the same recipe I posted before, put some lemon zest into the batter and topped the clafoutis with lavender sugar. Heavenly!

Since there was nothing but election results on tv tonight (what? another election?)we were watching some DVDs--(can you believe Japan is having another election? At least the loud speakers during Kat's nap time were non-existent this time around.) Awhile back I told you about Li Hing popcorn which I picked up while I was home? Well, we finally got around to eating the next flavor that I picked up....Korean BBQ.

I was quite disappointed with this one. Somehow the flavor packet was weak and tasted mostly of furikake and arare. And why is it that the arare (rice crackers) that come with the furikake are always stale? I wonder if they get stale when you mix it with the butter? Maybe the packaging isn't very airtight. Either that or I'm spoiled with the fresh arare that I eat here. I have a feeling it might be the latter.

So back to the election, Satoshi says it is because the rest of the government do not like the current prime minister, so they are having an election to change the prime minister. Apparently whichever party wins, that political party gets to choose who will be the new prime minister. Satoshi says most times the very second the political party wins and chooses someone, the rest of the government wants to change the guy in charge. So someone chosen for 4 years could get kicked out half-way or several months into his term. Definitely not very good for world relations.

If you ask me, I think they have too many political parties in Japan, which causes a lot problems, kind of like when there are too many chefs in the kitchen? But since I can't vote here, I guess I can't grumble too much about it other than I wish they would do all of their elections in one swoop and stop using their loud speakers to campaign (especially during my nap time!)

Have a great week.

cherry clafoutis

It is cherry season here. Bing cherries are here from America. In Japanese they called these...American cherry. I've been seeing a lot of cherry clafoutis on blogs recently....here and here and here and having never eaten this, I wanted to try making it.

I found a recipe in "The Silver Spoon". (There was another recipe for it in another cookbook I had, but that recipe called for 3 eggs and I wanted to half the recipe, so I chose the one in "The Silver Spoon".)

I didn't have a cherry pitter, so I improvised and used my tomato knife. I never knew what that hook-like thing on the tip of the knife was for (I tried using it to take the stem of the tomato off with it, but it never really did the job)...so now it is my cherry pitter. I was amazed at how easily the pits came out using this hook. Not much mess either.

You can check out the other blogs for their recipes, or you can use this recipe, it really was easy.

Cherry Clafoutis (Clafoutis alle ciliege)
Serves 6 from "The Silver Spoon"

sweet butter for greasing
scant 1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 cup milk
scant 2 cup black cherries, pitted
vanilla sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 400F(200C). Grease a cake pan with butter.
Sift the flour into a mound in a bowl, make a well in the center, add the eggs, sugar and milk and mix well.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan so that it is two-thirds full.
Sprinkle the cherries on top and bake for 40 minutes.
Sprinkle with vanilla sugar before serving.

NOTES: As I said above, I halved the recipe and used ramekins instead of a cake pan. I didn't have sweet butter and used olive oil to grease the ramekins. I really liked this--the texture was like bread pudding with warm cherries, very different from canned cherry filling in pies. These cherries were a bit tart, but the vanilla sugar topping helped to balance everything out. (Maybe a scoop of vanilla ice cream would be nice with it too!) Plus, when I opened my bottle of vanilla sugar the aroma was heavenly!


Hope you have a nice weekend!

apples...lunch

I had a lesson today, so I met Satoshi in Umeda afterwards. We had lunch at a cafe called La Maison Marina de Bourbon. The cafe was very nice and the food was good. I had a pastrami wrap with cottage cheese and avocado. The tea I chose was a vanilla flavored tea. It was really fragrant. (UPDATE: 2011 this restaurant is now closed)

For tonight's dessert I decided to try my hand at Apple Crisp. We had so many apples and then received some more and there is only so much you can eat for breakfast...so, this is how it came out. I topped it with vanilla ice cream....I cut the recipe down a bit because my oven isn't big enough for a 2-quart baking dish, plus I don't have one. :) It tasted great!!


Ingredients:
6 medium (6 cups) apples, peeled, cored, sliced
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup uncooked old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup Land O' Lakes Butter
Vanilla ice cream, if desired
Instructions:Heat oven to 375F (190C). Place apples in ungreased 2-quart baking dish. Combine brown sugar, oats, flour and cinnamon in medium bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle sugar mixture over apples. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until apples are tender and topping is golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream, if desired.