inedit

I saw this beer on Tabera (Japan's foodie Instagram) and when I saw it at a upscale market, I decided to check an import market near our area.

They had the beer and it was a little cheaper than the upscale market's price...whoo!

At 750 mililiters this amount was similar to a bottle of wine...The name of the beer, Inedit, means "never been done" in Spanish. Created by Ferran Adrià of El Bulli in 2008, he wanted a beer to "accompany and compliment modern gastromy".

This beer has some spices like coriander, liquorice and orange peel.

The little booklet that comes with the bottle suggest foods like starters, salads, fatty fish...citrus, cheese...so that is what I served.

kale chips and roasted cauliflowers, both tossed in a lemon balsamic dressing before roasting.

It was the first time making kale chips for me, I liked the crunchiness of the kale!

Caciocavallo, a cheese that reminded us of mozzarella, that is made in Hokkaido.

I've been wanting to try this cheese for some time, I'm glad we got to. So good melted!

I also made some fragrant chickpea salad.

And I marinated some sliced onions with some sliced lemon, vinegar, sugar and olive oil. I steamed some asparagus and topped it with some smoked salmon, the sliced onions and drizzled a little of the vinaigrette.

They suggest you serve this in a white wine glass.

Different to drink beer this way, but with all the different foods, the fruity notes really matched the foods, so good!

We also had some bread laden with two types of olives.

I'm glad we got a chance to try this!

p.s. I've started using Instagram again, please follow us if your are interested!

rioja

The other day, one of my Instagram friends mentioned something about Rioja wines that was really interesting.

She said, "you need to check the back of the bottle to make sure there is "the hologram"".

So, I checked the back of this 2007 Campo Viejo Rioja Crianza, and sure enough...there's the hologram.

I also found a great article which explains it all here.

Love the internet.

p.s. The past week's weather has been quite weird, sudden thunder and lightning storm on Tuesday, then a major drop in temperature...it's Friday here, hope you have a great weekend!

elgorriaga

Found this at the train station's convenience store...Elogorriaga's Galletas from Spain.

In Spanish, galletas are cookies...these are filled with a chocolate cream.

The taste of the cookies without the cream, reminded me of a creme cracker that we have in Hawaii.

Best part was that these were on sale for 105 yen (about U$1.05)...4 in a package, a great little snack.

cacao sampaka

While I was waiting for Satoshi to finish his German class on Saturday, I went to check out the Cacao Sampaka cafe in Umeda.

It is their first cafe in the Kansai area.

I've tried their chocolates before and liked them, and I was interested to see what types of things they offered at their cafe.

I had heard that people in Spain dunk churros into their cups of hot chocolate, so that is what I ordered, the churros set....1100 yen (about US$11)

The set came with one plain and one cinnamon churro. It also came with a strawberry chocolate dipping sauce.

As part of the set, I could choose one of their two types of hot chocolate 70% or 80%, I went with the 70% called Catalan.

Big disappointment on the churro, it was crunchy and very, very oily. Are they supposed to be crunchy and chewy? I kind of imagined it should be more like a cake doughnut texture, soft on the inside with a little crunch to it on the outside.

So, I dunked my first bite of churro into my chocolate...blah! and after that ate it with the sauce. The sauce made it bearable, but everything seemed to sit heavy in my stomach afterwards...blah!

I really liked the hot chocolate by itself though, a little acidic, very rich and creamy.

Will have to go back to try something else, maybe their gelats (gelato)?? (gelats is Catalan for gelato)

Cacao Sampaka
Daimaru Umeda 7F
Phone: 06.6341.7470
Open 10:00-20:00

chocolate finds

It's that time of year, the department stores have brought in TONS of chocolate for Valentine's Day.

All for the "guys"..pfft!

I debated as to whether to check out Salon du Chocolat in Kyoto, but there was nothing that really piqued my interest so I decided not to go this year.

The first photo is something from a lady in my French class, she was so thrilled with the Victoria's Secret lip gloss I gave her when I came back from Hawaii in January, that she gave me and the rest of the class these boxes of truffles from the Hotel Okura.

I ate the dark chocolate ones and gave the milk and white ones to Satoshi. Nothing out of the ordinary about these but I appreciate the thought (thank you!)

She also gave us these 86% chocolates...ack, too bitter and acidic, kinda chalky even. Blah, thank you but sorry, no.

So the other day, I went to the Hankyu Department store, they started their Valentine's fair and had brought in some new chocolatiers this year...like Berger, an Austrian maker.

I tried their plum & pimento bar...1260 yen (about US$12.60)

The 70% chocolate envelopes a plum and pimento filling. You can't taste the pimento but the plum is very noticeable, in a good way.

I loved how shiny their bars were, though it made it hard to photograph because I would always see my camera reflecting.

Baixas, a Spanish chocolatier in Barcelona.

This one is noted in a book I have about different chocolates.

I tried their 3-piece bon-bons...840 yen (about US$8.40)

Coconut, a coconut ganache covered with a dark chocolate & coconut flakes...nice.

Pepper, a black pepper ganache covered with dark chocolate..spicy, my fave!

Raspberry, a raspberry ganache covered with dark chocolate and raspberry bits...tart but nice.

Bachhalm 1928, another Austrian chocolatier.

They were giving out samples while I stood in line, so I got to try their Fruits of the Forest bar. This bar was covered with strawberry, raspberry & black currant powder. The flavors were very bright, nice.

When it was my turn to order, I went with their ginger bar though. This bar is 54% (actually 53.8%) cacao (the highest percentage in their bars) with fresh bits of ginger...1785 yen (about US$17.85)

The guy that was selling these said that usually you find candied ginger or dried ginger used, but this bar uses fresh bits, so these were different.

This was spicy and matched the chocolate perfectly...yum!

Plus on the flaps of the box reads "viel freude beim genießen" (enjoy with much joy), I will indeed!

I also tried these orangette by Club Harie, a sweets maker in Shiga Prefecture.

This seemed to be semi-sweet chocolate and it also looks like it may have bloomed. It was still very nice with coffee.

At LOFT, a store with all sorts of things, New Tree's mini bars, a Belgian chocolate maker.

They had varying cacao percentages and I bought the ones that were dark chocolate, 73% cacao.

Cassis (Black currant) had a nice berry flavor. Poivre Rose (Pink Peppercorn) had a nice kick to it, my fave. Cerise (Cherry) had a subtle cherry flavor.

So, that's the chocolates for this Valentine's season, not as many in the past but some nice finds.

It is Friday here, the weather has started to warm up during the day, but early mornings and the evenings are still quite cold.

Have a nice weekend!

spain fair

Recently, there was a special fair at a department store in Osaka that featured products from Spain. I love these events because you can usually get a "taste" of the area--they usually gather the most popular foods, beverages and culture items. Of course, I went especially for the chocolates. There was Oriol Balaguer. He has a shop in Tokyo, but since I didn't get a chance to check it out last year when I went on my foodie adventure, I figured it was a good chance to pick up some of his chocolates. This is the Collection No. 4 (from left to right)--apricot, orange, raspberry, passion fruit. These chocolates were nice and creamy, but I was a bit disappointed as the ganache flavors were quite light and hard to tell what flavor was what. I don't mean that I would want it to "scream" with flavor, but it would have been nice to be able to tell what was what.
There were traditional cookies called Polvoron. After buying these cookies, I was disappointed because I took a look at the box and found out that they were made by a company in Japan, and weren't from Spain. Apparently, similar cookies are found all around Andalusia and are given out at special occasions like weddings. They are supposed to help "call" or "invite" happiness. The texture of these cookies were quite dense, and stuck to the roof of my mouth--you could tell they were made with lard or shortening. The texture reminded me of the Okinawan chinsuko.
My favorite items from the fair were chocolates made by Cacao Sampaka. I read about them in a foodie magazine and they don't have a shop in Japan, so I was excited that they were appearing at this fair. I bought 3 of their samplers (actually they had 3 more, but I didn't have enough $$, so I picked out what I thought were the most interesting samples). The top right one, was their gastronomic innovations (clockwise)--black olive, balsamic vinegar (red splash), olive oil (green flecks) and parmesan cheese. Boy, was I surprised to find a hunk of cheese in the parmesan one and deliciously paired with a dark chocolate. These were all very different but I loved them!

Bottom right is the spice selection (clockwise)--Jamaican pepper, ginger and lemon, saffron with red flecks, and cinnamon, cloves & nutmeg. The ganaches were mixed with nuts, but were very tasty and paired nicely with the chocolates they used to coat them with. My favorite from this sampler was the pepper, the peppery taste hits you toward the end.

Bottom left is the herb selection (clockwise)--thyme, rosemary, peppermint, licorice. Each ganache was infused very nicely with the various herbs and paired nicely with the coating chocolates.

I'm so happy that I was able to try these different treats, although I can't wait to visit Spain some day...In a couple of days, another department store is having a U.K. fair....stay tuned.