happy lunar new year

Happy Lunar New Year!

We went to Yokohama's Chinatown on Saturday to celebrate.

It is only a 30 minute ride by train from where we live.

We started off with some happo tea and snacks at Gokuchaso (which apparently translates to Monkey Magic Tea House).

Happo tea has eight different dried items like goji berries, chrysanthemum as well as some tea too.

It was pretty nice to sit and leisurely drink tea without too much chattering going on in the cafe.

I ordered an amanikuman which was a bun filled with housemade char siu.

Not too sweet and the steamed bun was really soft!

I would definitely get this again.

Satoshi ordered the char siu with white scallion bowl.

I've notice this combination is popular in the Kanto (East Japan) area.

Top the bowl with a raw egg and add more seasoning if you wish with soy sauce or chili sauce.

Satoshi said he enjoyed this.

After several pots of tea, we went kitty corner to the Masobyo Temple which in Chinese is the Ma Zhu Miao Temple.

Apparently this is the temple for the Sea Goddess Mazu.

We didn't realize we need to pay to visit this temple, so after looking around a bit, we left.

Lunch was at Ryuhoshuka.

Satoshi ordered these shrimp gyoza which turned out to be har gow.

They were delicious.

We also ordered this zuwaigani (snow crab) fried rice.

This was rich and delicious!

Lots of douchi (black bean) sauce.

I wanted to order the paiko fried rice...paiko is written páigǔ in Chinese and is a kind of spare rib, but they had run out of it, so instead I ordered the short rib donabe gohan which was a garlicky rice dish cooked with short ribs in a clay pot.

This was delicious, especially the parts that were stuck to the pot.

We ate a lot of rice that day but everything had different flavors and were delicious.

There are other places we want to check out so we'll be back to Yokohama's Chinatown.

Gokuchaso
130 Yamashitacho
Naka-ku, Yokohama
Phone: 045.681.7776
Hours: Mondays-Fridays 11:30-20:00, Saturdays 11:00-21:00, Sundays 11:00-20:00

Ryuhoshuka
152 Yamashitacho
Naka-ku, Yokohama
Phone: 045.662.9201
Closed Tuesdays
Hours: 11:30-14:30 (lunch), 17:30-21:00 (dinner)

kung hee fat choy!

It's the start of Chinese New Year...the year of the monkey (fire monkey), which apparently occurs every 60 years.

We purchased these cute zodiac candies from Ogurasanso, earlier this year.

Not all the animals were recognizable, though.

They were still fun to look at and taste good too.

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

kung hee fat choy

It's the start of Chinese New Years...the year of the Dragon.

I've posted a picture of this before.

This dragon was painted on the ceiling of Myoshinji in Kyoto. The unryuzu (picture of the dragon) is 25 meters (82 feet) long and 20 meters (65 feet) wide and was drawn on the ceiling by Kano Tanyu, no matter where you stand in the room, the dragon is always looking at you.

Kung Hee Fat Choy!

setsubun + kung hee fat choy

"Kung Hee Fat Choy" (Happy New Year), today is the start of the Chinese year, the Year of the Rabbit.

I came across this chocolate rabbit over the weekend, it was similar to this lion bread except they made long rabbit ears and put a sliced almond for the teeth...yum!

Today is also Setsubun. I've written about this in detail in the past, here.

We ate our ehomaki (uncut sushi for good luck) this morning since Satoshi usually comes home late and doesn't eat rice at his dinnertime.

Instead of making the ehomaki this year, I found some at 7-eleven. Since they didn't have two of the same type, I bought one of each and gave the bigger one to Satoshi.

This year's lucky direction is nan-nan-to (south-south-east).

I think it is the first time these two occasions fell on the same day, must have some extra good luck behind it, don't you think?

jalna's brownies

It is Valentine's Day, where guys "rule" and women have to profess their love for them by giving them chocolate...ha! (though I did buy some chocolate for Satoshi)

Still, I guess I'll look forward to White Day.

I had bookmarked this recipe awhile back and finally got around to making them.

I kinda altered part of the recipe because I was lazy to take out some butter from the freezer (so I added oil) and I also thought there was too much sugar in the recipe for me.

Jalna's original recipe and post is here.

Here is what I did.

3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons EVOO
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs
1 cup chocolate chips (used 60% Ghiradelli)
1/2 cup nuts (used pecans)

Put the nuts and chocolate chips with the first 3 ingredients so that they don't sink to the bottom when baking.

Mix the sugar, EVOO, water & extract well, add the eggs. Mix well.

Combine with the dry ingredients and mix well.

Put into 6 muffin papers and bake 325F (170C) for 30-35 minutes.

NOTES: I put the batter into muffin papers because whenever I bake, my pans have to fit on the turntable in my oven to bake evenly. I do have square pans that fit on my turntable, but I was again, too lazy to butter and flour it.

These came out a little dry (maybe I should have baked them only 30 minutes??), but delicious, especially with some black coffee.

You don't have to spend a lot on Valentines, just give your special someone a hug, hope you have a great day.

Hey, it is also Chinese New Years, let the Year of the Tiger begin! Kung Hee Fat Choy!

gochika

Remember the Osaka book? Well, when I saw the photo of the candied fruits and veggies I immediately thought of Shung Chong Yuein, the sweet shop which unfortunately no longer exists in Hawaii's Chinatown.

Last year when I was home, I visited Chinatown with Nate and he took me to his cousin's shop who was selling tong guo, the candied fruits and veggies for Chinese New Year.

For me, even though I'm not Chinese, it just isn't Chinese New Year unless I eat some tong guo.

So, I wanted to get the candied fruits and veggies from the book. Of course I had never tried it, but it looked similar.

Apparently, Tourindo, the makers of this candy, started making them in 1929, as a way to showcase the fresh fruits and veggies from the area.

They originally had five different fruits and veggies which ranged in five different colors, green from the butterbur, white from the lotus root, red from the carrot, yellow from the kumquat and black from the fig. Apparently these colors symbolized the wisdom one received from the various fruits and vegetables.

The name of the product is gochika (go = 5, chi = wisdom, ka = fruit or vegetable). When you bite into it, it is quite sweet, but the flavor of the fruit or vegetable shines through.

The set that I bought had 9 different items for 1260 yen (about US$12.60), shoga (ginger), kinkan (kumquat), ninjin (carrot), renkon (lotus root), fuki (butterbur), orange peel, yonashi (pear), gobo (burdock) & ichijiku (fig).

Apparently throughout the year the types of fruits and veggies that are candied changes. They also list grapefruit, eggplant, celery, shiitake, cucumber and many others depending on what they can get.

Even though it was pricey, I'm glad I tried this, with some pu-erh tea, it has started my Chinese New Year off nicely.

Kung Hee Fat Choy!

Tourindo
8-19-1 Yamamoto-cho-minami
Yao, Osaka
Phone: 072.923.0003

local foodie kind of weekend

Saturday, we checked out the Farmer's Market at KCC (Kapiolani Community College). There were all sorts of food items as well as potted plants and cut flowers. One item which I purchased was made by a local company called Honolulu Fudge Sauce Company. They have several different flavors mostly made with Guittard chocolates, but the one that caught my eye was their Premium Hawaiian made from 100% Hawaiian chocolate grown on the Big Island. With a name like "Spoonalicious" you know it has to be good!

Another item which I picked up was locally made honey. There is a co-op (which I didn't know about) called the Hawaiian Honeybee Co-op which makes different kinds of honeys in different parts of the islands. This particular honey was made in Enchanted Lakes (Kailua, Oahu) from a variety of flowers.

Sunday was the start of the Chinese New Year, to which you should greet others saying "Kung Hee Fat Choy" or "Happy New Year". It is the year of the Boar and a Golden Boar at that, which supposedly only comes around every 600 years! It is supposed to be a very lucky year, but also one for many natural disasters, so please be careful everyone!

I also got together with BFF and S for some shopping and noshing. It was a great time. At one of the shopping malls we went to, I searched for the Sahale Snacks, but still haven't found any :( Oh well, I guess I'll just enjoy the one flavor (Sing Buri) that I did find.

Next year or maybe at the end of this year, Whole Foods Market will be opening here, so I'm looking forward to more foodie finds on my next trip back home.

Monday was President's Day--a State & Federal holiday here. We got together with some of my relatives for dinner and a kanikapila (playing the ukelele (hawaiian musical instrument) and singing). It was great!

And lastly, today is Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras--the day before Lent in which rich ingredients such as flour, eggs and milk are supposed to be used up.

Even though my religion does not observe Lent, it gave me a good excuse to get some of my favorite--Champion Malasadas.

Hope you have a great week!