this and that

This past Saturday (Friday in the US) was my cousin's son's graduation.

I think in order to keep the gathering small, each student could only invite 4 people to attend the ceremony.

Luckily, they had an online viewing, so we were able to watch the ceremony, love technology!

It was Satoshi's first experience to see an American high school graduation.

Congratulations K and the class of 2021!

Chiyohime peaches...these were smaller than normal, but super floral.

Chiyohime literally means Princess Chiyo

They could have been a little more ripe because the flesh near the seed was sour and really firm.

Can't wait to try different varieties in the coming weeks.

On June 20th last year, we were eating at Civitas.

Since last year, most eateries have these acrylic "walls" to block "flying germs"...which also makes conversations pretty hard to hear...

The only reason we were eating out was because we went to see Satoshi's friend perform rakugo.

We saw him perform a couple of times in Osaka.

The auditorium that we went to see the performance at had seats blocked off with these signs so that no one was seated next to each other and not right behind each other.

Everyone had to keep their mask on while watching the performances.

This dude was not paying attention and sat right in front of me.

The sign which was taped to the chair fell off the seat and when he stood up to leave, guess what was attached to his back?!

We should have chased after him....we wondered how far he got before someone told him about it…or if anyone told him about it

It was nice to be out and about, but it was oh so humid especially while wearing a mask.

Not to mention my feet got beat up from not wearing sandals in over a year.

Loved the stained glass in the lobby of the auditorium.

Near the main entrance there was a life-size cut out of sumo wrestler, Taiho.

On the way back to catch the train I noticed this huge magnolia hanging over the temple wall next door to the auditorium..

Monday...emergency dental thingy, I freaked myself out and thought one of my lower front teeth had cracked near the base of the tooth and was kinda depressed about it…after some checking the dentist says…”it is plaque!” and had the hygienist clean my teeth…whew! and thankful for insurance.

As for the Olympics, they (JOC-Japan Olympic Committee) have decided to go against what the medical people have recommended.

The medical people recommended no spectators…JOC plan to allow 10,000 spectators to view each game and allow 20,000 spectators each for the opening and closing ceremonies.

The medical people recommended people from other prefectures not be allowed to come to Tokyo..so JOC are allowing it.  

And while we are at it... the main branch of government have also allowed people from other prefectures to come to Tokyo to get vaccinated!

As of June 21st, the state of emergency in Tokyo has ended, bars & restaurants are allowed to serve alcohol.

BUT, you can only be in a party of 2 and can only drink for 90 minutes (at a time) between 11:00 and 19:00…there are people that have been drinking non-stop from 11:00 to 19:00…geez!

All eateries/bars must close at 20:00....excuse my finger, but you can see how antsy everyone was to go out drinking with all the empty bottles in front of a bar...

Can you believe JOC was thinking to serve alcohol during the games in the stands?! which would've been a double standard for all the eateries who would have had to stop serving at 19:00...sigh

Oh and there was one member of the team from Uganda who tested positive AFTER arriving in Japan.

The main government is playing the "I thought you were supposed to do it" card with who is supposed to check on the others travelling with the infected member and the other passengers on the same flight...sigh

As of today, the infected one member from Uganda has since increased to two members...eep!

Tokyo is on the rebound with infected cases, with the state of emergency ended and everyone out and about like the pandemic is over, I can only imagine what the numbers will be like next week.

With less than 30 days until the start of the games, Tokyo will probably skyrocket out of control...pray for us people...at this point, the main branch of government is only relying on the vaccines...

Have a safe weekend.

kazuya

Friday, we had flurries and even a little snow. Most of if melted by the time the sun came out on Saturday.

Saturday, I went out for a walk and noticed two ume trees in Suigetsu Park have bloomed. In the afternoon, we had more flurries and a little more snow. It was nice watching it whizz by the window like we were in some kind of "spin cycle" with some styrofoam.

Sunday, we awoke to a beautiful blue sky and sun! but it was still very cold. Not wanting to stay indoors all day, Satoshi and I walked to Ikeda for lunch.

We tried a ramen shop called Kazuya. It is located right next door to the Rakugo museum. I've talked about rakugo before, here.

Satoshi ordered the mini shio ramen (salt broth noodles) with kaisendon (seafood bowl)...1030 yen.

This was so...small! The ramen had barely anything in there and the noodles were really thin.

I ordered the shio ramen with sakura ebi (sergia lucens) and veggies....850 yen.

My bowl of noodles were at least 3 times the size of Satoshi bowl of noodles.

After eating about a fourth of my bowl, I gave the rest to Satoshi and ate his bowl of noodles.

He felt bad because he knew how small his bowl was, but I felt even worse because his meal had so little.

The service was really spotty close to being bad even with the crowd they had.

While the broth was delicious, in the end, we decided this ramen shop was not worth coming back for.

Kazuya (UPDATE: no longer in business)
7-4 Sakaehonmachi
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.751.8228
Closed Mondays

foodie saturday in minami osaka

Saturday, Satoshi had the day off. We planned to see his friend perform Rakugo (Japanese comedy story telling), but before that, we headed to Shinsaibashi for lunch. I had heard about Nanshomantouten while watching the news one day.

The original shop is in Shanghai and has been in business since 1900. They are known for shorompo (xiaolongbao, a soup filled dumpling) Apparently the one in Shinsaibashi has been in business for over 70 years.

I ordered the C-lunch (1785 yen (about US$17.85)). This came with an order of shorompo (dumplings), a choice of an appetizer, a choice of noodles or rice and a choice of dessert. I chose the mochi rice shumai (steamed dumpling filled with seasoned glutinous rice), I also chose the mabo tofu (spicy pork, tofu over rice) and the annindofu (almond tofu). The mochi rice dumpling was well seasoned, and the shorompo was delicious with black vinegar and shredded ginger. To eat it you had to becareful not to burn yourself as the soup shoots out of the dumpling when you bite into it. The dessert was delicious too, firm and not too sweet.

Satoshi chose the B-lunch (1596 yen (about US$15.96)) His lunch came with an order of shorompo, a choice of an appetizer and a choice of noodles or rice. He chose the curry filled gyoza, which was actually a puff pastry filled with curry. He also chose the tan tan men (a spicy beef topping) with noodles and broth. He enjoyed everything and even ate some of my mabo tofu. They also gave us lots of jasmine tea, very fragrant and delicious.

After lunch, we did some window shopping and walked around before the performance, since we had some time to kill, we also stopped into Marufuku coffee for some coffee and something sweet. The interior of the cafe is very retro and they have been in business since 1934. We both ordered the cafe au lait (490 yen about US$4.90 each) and shared a plate of cookies (220 yen (about US$2.20). It was nice to sit down for a bit and we enjoyed our coffee and sweets.

After our little break, we went around the corner to where Satoshi's friend was performing. The group performed 4 different rakugo stories and it was quite funny. Sometimes the story telling is quite fast and sometimes I have a hard time understanding, but I still had a nice time.

Hope your weekend was a good one!

Nanshomantouten
1-5-18 Shinsaibashi-suji, Fujii Building 1F
Chuo-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6120.2185

Marufuku Coffee
1-9-1 Sennichimae
Chuo-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6211.3474

foodie kind of weekend

Saturday was a nice day. Great for laundry.

After a couple of loads, we decided to go to Ikeda. Satoshi wanted to check out their rakugo museum. On the way, we stopped into Yuan for lunch. This place is run by Toyosu, a local arare (rice cracker) maker. I had the o-makase (leave it up to the chef) set.

It came with a mini dessert. I chose the kurogoma dango (black sesame dumplings)--rice dumplings covered with a black sesame sauce.

After lunch, we walked about 30 minutes to Ikeda.


The Rakugo museum opened sometime last year. Rakugo is a "sit-down" comedy that has quite a long history. It is part story telling and part comedy. I once saw an english version of Rakugo at the University of Hawaii.


One of Satoshi's co-workers does rakugo as an amateur. Rakugo is still quite popular in Osaka. This museum is free to the public and there is even a viewing area where you can borrow DVD to watch in the area. There were quite a number of people laughing out loud with their headsets on. Kind of fun to watch these people.

Sunday was another great day. Since we didn't want to stay indoors, we decided to go to Nakayama after lunch. Nakayama is about 5 stations from where we live. We stopped in to Marie-Ange for dessert. The cafe area seats only 10 people, but since it was Sunday, no one was there. Satoshi chose the Sakura (cherry blossom) roll--a vanilla sponge cake filled with cream and a sakura an (cherry flavored sweet bean paste) in the middle.

I chose the chiboust. A flaky crust filled with bananas and topped with chiboust cream. The sugary top was caramelized, like a creme brulee.

Delicious! The best part of this cafe was that they had free re-fills of coffee, something that is unheard of in Japan!

After dessert, we went to the grocery store. I wanted parmigiano reggiano...and was surprised, as the price has since doubled since the last time I bought a slice. 80g is now 1000 yen (about US$10)!

We used the cheese very sparingly on our pasta for dinner. Peas are in season now, so I added some to our pasta.

It looks like the houses on the other side of our building will be torn down. They vacated the houses and have started putting up the poles to attach dust curtains. Hopefully it won't be too dusty.

Hope your week is a good one!

christmas dinner

Today was a National Holiday, Tennotanjoobi (The Emperor's Birthday). Satoshi had the day off so we went to our favorite cafe for breakfast. It took us a little longer to get there than usual because most of the streets had snow that had melted and re-froze...which meant that the roads were VERY icy and slippery.

After breakfast, we tried to walk in areas that the sun was hitting, and made our way back.

Satoshi's sempai (senior co-worker) is active in a rakugo club. Rakugo is a traditional form of telling comical stories. We saw his performance about three years ago. Today, they had a performance in Namba (the southern part of Osaka). I couldn't really understand what was going on because the storytellers spoke very fast and in Kansai-dialect (plus, I kind of...shh...fell asleep...)

After the rakugo performance, we went to Toyonaka for our Christmas dinner. Toyonaka is 2 stations away from our station, Ishibashi.

The restaurant we ate at was Noix de Coco. It is rather casual french restaurant.
We had the prix fixe menu (a complete meal offered at a fixed price) in Japanese this is called "set-menu".

The aperitif was a glass of Dom Perignon champagne.

The next course was the appetizer tara shirako (codfish roe) with Shimonita (an area in Gunma) leek flan and zuwaigani (snow crab) tartare.

Next was choked or strangled wild duck (yipes!!) with foie gras in a zingara sauce (demi-glace sauce made with tomato & Madeira wine).

The next course was baked oysters with a red bell pepper sauce and a spinach sauce. Next came the sea urchin and yurinone (lily bulb) egg custard in a cup (chawan mushi).

Getting full yet? The next course was Homard lobster bouillabaisse....

The next course was Satsuma (Kagoshima area) beef filet simmered in red wine. And the last course (finally!!) was a plate of assorted desserts. I only took a picture of this course because I was running out of memory space....The dessert in the wine glass was sweet potato pudding, the orange one was persimmon sorbet, the one in the egg cup was strawberries in compote, and the one with the "xmas" on it was a gateau chocolat with green tea and banana sauce....whew!!

I think I've eaten enough this week to last me a couple of months...unfortunately, we have a get-together on Christmas day (yipes!!). Ever since we came to Japan, we usually get together with two of Satoshi's co-workers and their families for Christmas.

To all of our family and friends that have sent us Holiday greetings, thank you very much for remembering us!! We really appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness!!

Merry Christmas!!

Noix de Coco (UPDATE:2016 they have moved from this location)
1-11-1 Honmachi, Honmachi Building #102
Toyonaka, Osaka
Phone: 06.6854.7654