saturday

Saturday, it was so brutally humid.

Still, we wanted to check out the fireflies, so we made our way to Minoo Falls.

Before heading out onto the trail, we stopped into Cafe de Crie for something cold...

Satoshi had a coffee float (iced coffee with vanilla ice cream)

And I got this...a bright bluish greenish mint chocolate drink...loved how it had bits of chocolate in it as well as that thick chocolate drizzle on top.

We only saw a handful of fireflies, and even though it was humid it was nice to be out and about and I'm glad we made it home before the rain.

mint water

Remember that mint water I was intrigued with at La Tour Cafe?

Well, I tried re-creating it the other night.

I don't have specific quantities so until I do, I'll tell you what I put into it.

Mint (leaves, stems of only the young mint plants)
4 cups water
zest of lemon
juice of lemon
zest of an orange
juice of of an orange

Whiz

*you can add the sweetner of your choice, but I just drank it as is

NOTES: My aunties suggested adding a splash of rum or tequila, maybe even blending the whole thing with some ice.

The "texture" of the drink was a little different from the one at La Tour Cafe, but still refreshing. I guess you could strain the whole concoction, but we drank it as is.

I'm making this again.

tuesday

Tuesday the weather was "hot"...summer-like even.

When I went to the market, guess what I found from Southern Japan...watermelon. It's only April, right?!

I wanted to make Ayun's Salad....but there was no basil to be found, so I used mint from my lanai.

The feta cheese that I usually buy was outrageously expensive, so I used mozzarella.

Since I didn't have the marinated feta, I used a basil vinaigrette instead. I also sprinkled some mixed pink pepper.

It wasn't bad...I could get used to this version.

The weather dude has since said that we're gonna have another cold snap over the weekend...oh joy!

on a happier note...the freesia from the lanai bloomed...whoo!

Have a nice weekend.

lanai

Thought I only had one goya this year, but found this one hidden...it was about 6 or 7 inches long.

I made this into a "champuru" with the goya, lup cheong and egg.

This one was really bitter but delicious.

The champuru went nicely with a Bass Pale Ale, an English beer, 5.1% alcohol. A little bitter aftertaste but delicious.

I was reading up on Swiss Chard and Beets and the info mentioned that you could pick the leaves as long as they were 4 to 6 inches long.

So I picked some and wilted them with some spinach that I bought.

We had this with a little dollop of mayo...yum!

The Italian parsley is doing well, I pick some whenever I want to add it to something I'm cooking, especially mushrooms and pasta...mmm!

I noticed this the other day, the mint is half dark green and half light green, I wonder why that is?!

Oh and the bergamot died...had this weird powdery mildew that I read about online...boo!

How is your garden doing?

zoheikyoku

Every year after the majority of sakura (cherry) trees have bloomed, the zoheikyoku (Mint of Japan) has their cherry blossom viewing. The types of trees that the Mint has are the double cherry, which usually blooms later than the single type.

From what I understand there are 3 Mints, the main one in Osaka, and smaller ones in Tokyo and Hiroshima.

The first time Satoshi and I went to this cherry viewing was pre-blog and a really bad experience.

For one thing, they make you walk one way through the property. Not knowing this at that time, we had walked through the crowds of people that ran parallel to the Mint--through the food booths and games that you usually see at festivals in Japan, and ended up at the exit to the event. The security guard told us if we wanted to see the blossoms we would have to turn around, go back through the crowd and start over...ugh!

So, after that experience, we never went back to check this place out...until yesterday.

It was a really sunny day...to the tune of 27C (80.6F). We followed the line of people to the Mint and were corralled through the walkways of the property to view the blossoms.

Throughout the walkways, they had security guards blasting us with their megaphones, telling us "not to stop to take photos or stop to look at the blossoms, but enjoy yourselves".....WT?! (picture of one of the mood breakers) Of course, most of us just ignored them and snapped away...

Within the 560 meters of walkway there are 126 different species and 348 cherry trees. (They also have a museum, but it wasn't open while we were there.)

Every year they pick a species as "the tree of the year", this year was the "hirano-nadeshiko", which I wish I could show you a photo of, but the signage was bad so we couldn't figure out which tree it was and of course, I couldn't "stop to photograph" it....sigh.

So, despite the bad taste in our mouths with this event, we got to see some beautiful cherry blossoms for the last time this year.

They only have this event for a week and are also open in the evenings for night time viewing...though I think we've had our fill of these types of viewings (the kind where everyone is at) and will probably stick to those places where we can view the blossoms at our leisure and maybe with more elbow room.

Zoheikyoku (Osaka Mint)
1-1-79 Tenma
Phone: 050.5548.8686
located near the Tenmabashi station

foodie kind of weekend

Saturday--Satoshi had his German language class, I met him in Umeda for lunch. We ate at a restaurant called Hong Kong Chon Long. It is a chain restaurant. This restaurant is buffet-style with a time limit of 90 minutes. The food is really good, but the customers cutting through the lines to get their food were really upsetting. Here is the dessert that I had, a lemony gelatin like dish with some kiwi and goji berries, custard tarts, and jin dui (a mochi with sweet bean paste inside then is covered with sesame seeds and fried). We have jin dui in Hawaii, but the fillings are a bit different.

I saw this candy on the Candy Blog and had to add it to my dark chocolate stash--dark chocolate with whole hazelnuts made by Ritter Sport.

Another addition, this chocolate made by Choco-lina, is made from sheep's milk and made in Austria. I've seen this chocolate in some gourmet stores, but the price has made me think twice about buying it--about $7.35 per bar, but I was lucky today and got 2 bars for $4.20! These two sounded really interesting, 67% dark chocolate with rose buds & 65% dark chocolate with pumpkin seeds. There is no foil wrapping, so you can see right into the package!

Dinner was pork ginger, edamame (soy beans), salad, genmai (brown rice) and sakuranbo (cherries)

Pino ice cream is made by the Eskimo brand who is run by Meiji Dairy Products. They came out with a special flavor for summer, mint chocolate(one of my favorites)! In Japan, it is very rare to find mint chocolate ice cream, unless you are eating at Baskin & Robbins or in Okinawa at Blue Seal (a subsidiary of Foremost), the only green ice cream you can find is usually green tea. So I was very happy to find this at 7-eleven. 6 little ice cream bon-bons...Delicious!

Sunday--we woke up to clouds and some rain! Luckily, it was only drizzly as we walked to our favorite neighborhood cafe and made it there just before the DOWNPOUR!

Luckily, after breakfast the sun came out, unfortunately this brought the humidity way up! We did some grocery shopping and bought our dinner, just in case it rained in the evening, and then went to our favorite soba shop in the nearby shopping arcade.

Dinner was chirashizushi (vinegared rice topped with a variety of colorful ingredients). The toppings were tako (octopus), kani (crab) , amaebi (northern shrimp or crevette nordique) and ikura (salmon roe).

Satoshi's dinner was an assortment of different nigirizushi (hand molded sushi) from top, left to right, akagai (ark shell), sake (salmon), hotate (scallop), ikura (salmon roe), negitoro (green onion with the fatty part of the tuna), ebi (shrimp), kazunoko (herring roe), tako (octopus), hamachi (yellowtail), ika (squid), maguro (tuna)--I'm not too sure if these were all correct....

Dessert was a cup of mint chocolate ice cream by Meiji Dairy Products called Supercup....I only ate half, so guess what I'll be having tonight! :)

Hope you had a nice weekend.