Showing posts with label valentines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label valentines. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

happy valentine's day

How was your Valentine's Day?

For breakfast, we had oatmeal pancakes, with chocolate sandwiched in between and on top.

These are the chocolates I gave to Satoshi by Kanmigaro.

The temperature has been flip-flopping, really warm on Sunday and really fahreezing and rainy on Monday and Tuesday.

Hope you got to spend Valentine's with the one you love.

Monday, February 14, 2022

valentine’s

Happy Valentine’s!

We had sleet last night other areas had snow.

Melted some chocolate on our pancakes this morning. (Satoshi's is the one above)

Hope you have a sweet day.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

this and that

Sunday, with 3 blood oranges I made a small batch of marmalade.

After taking this picture, I put it back in the pot to cook down, since I thought it still had too much liquid.

Monday, it rained all day long.

We had some marmalade on toasted baguette with some butter.

Satoshi thought it was carrots...ha!

Monday dinner was marmalade chicken...this sauce was so easy and tasty!

From the Kewpie website: serves 2

2 tablespoons of marmalade

1 tablespoon of shoyu 

1 tablespoon of sake 

300 gram piece of chicken

Some olive oil

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces

Heat the oil and cook the chicken.

After the chicken is cooked, pour the sauce over the chicken and let it caramelize a little.

NOTES: I used boneless chicken thigh, cut it up and cooked it skin side down to crisp.

Then before adding the sauce, I wiped up the oil from the chicken.

I'd definitely make this again.

Back up to Monday afternoon, the rain stopped and I got to see a pretty big rainbow.
And then back up to Valentine's Day...Satoshi had to work.

I gave him these Italian chocolate hearts that I found at Flying Tiger, a knick-knack shop from Copenhagen that has shops all around Japan.

Whenever he works on Sundays, it throws me off and I get confused as to what day is what.

He's also been off on Wednesdays so that throws me off too...

Oh well...hope your week is going well.

Friday, February 15, 2019

this and that

Yesterday, I ran some errands then had lunch at Shake Shack.

I tried their Chick'n Shack...a crisp coating...very moist and meaty chicken.

Fluffy bun, buttermilk dressing, pickles and julienned lettuce...loved this.

Also love the sakura cups...Spring is coming!

Valentine's was low key.

I bought some pre-made food items from the department food floor and dipped some strawberries blinging them up with some sprinkles.

p.s. I gave Satoshi this bar of chocolate, he likes milk over dark...loved the wrapper, apparently there were 50? different types to choose from...hope you had a nice Valentine's Day!

Have a nice weekend!

Monday, February 15, 2016

salon du chocolat, valentine's and other stuff

In the past, Salon du Chocolat was staggered from Tokyo, moving on to Kyoto and then to other regions of Japan.

This year it was held all at one time and Salon du Chocolat in Osaka was held in the Lucua Hall area...super teeny!

By the time I went to check it out, a couple of days after it had started, most of the French chocolatiers had sold out...

I did manage to pick up a 70% dark chocolate bar by Marou. They grow their cacao in Vietnam. The cacao for this bar was grown in Tien Giang. It was quite fruity.

Fijiana Cacao, I found at Sony Plaza. They use cacao grown in Fiji. This particular bar had Christmas Island Sea Salt and nibs. This was a dark milk chocolate and also very fruity.

Chocolaterie de Marlieu was another bar I found at Salon du Chocolat, they have been in business since 1906. This tablette was filled with orange peel, raisins and freeze dried raspberries. It wasn't noted, but I think this was a dark chocolate.

Overall though, I think the place that had the best assortment of chocolates was Hankyu Department store.

They not only had a whole area for chocolate bars, but they also had areas for soft serve.

We tried Le Chocolat de H's ecuador soft serve...delicious with the nibs sprinkled on top.

Pierre Marcolini's Blanc Matcha was a bit too soft almost soupy.

The matcha was intense though.

For Valentine's I gave Satoshi these Pocky. They came out with 10 different sayings.

This particular Pocky was super thin and I gave him one that said "thanky"

Hope you had a nice Valentine's.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

valentine's day

How was your Valentine's Day? Hope you had a nice day with your special someone.

Since the girls are supposed to give the guys chocolates in Japan, I did something simple and dipped some strawberries in milk chocolate (Satoshi's fave) then decorated them with some blingy sprinkles for Satoshi.

Satoshi received some giri-choco (obligation chocolates) from his female co-workers. Someone even gave him a heart shaped senbei (rice cracker).

Lunch was at Gasthaus 44. A German restaurant. I chose the housemade sausages. This came with spƤtzle, sauerkraut and a dollop of mashed potatoes.

I really enjoyed the sausages. The white one is eaten with a sweet mustard and you need to peel the casing off before eating it. The darker one is eaten with grainy mustard. (the darker one was juicy!)

Satoshi went with their housemade hamburger, which was a meatball that had lots of cumin in it. It smelled wonderful.

After lunch, Satoshi went to meet some of his German classmates for a study session, so I killed some time and headed to Takamura Wine.

They also do coffee, so I had a cup of Mandheling.

Then we met up at Utsubo Park, where we saw this huge black cat. Bigger than my niece, I swear that it was a baby puma!

The weather was sunny but the wind was really icy.

Dinner was an assortment of things from the department food floor with wine.

Hope you have a nice week!

Gasthaus 44 (UPDATE:2021 out of business)
1-12-8 Awaza
Nishi-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6533.3443
Closed Sundays
Hours: Lunch 11:30-15:00, Dinner: 17:00-23:00

Saturday, February 15, 2014

odds & ends

Not enough days to blog about everything, so this post is packed with randomness...

Yesterday, we had snow, all.morning.long.

Luckily, I didn't have anything planned, so I stayed indoors and made this brownie dessert for Valentine's.

I used milk chocolate since that is what Satoshi likes. I didn't add sugar to the recipe since I was using milk chocolate and I also made a glaze/frosting for the brownies...don't ask me how much butter I used...gasp!

Earlier this month, we had some Chinese food for Chinese New Years at Lei Can Ting.

I don't think anything on my plate was traditionally Chinese New Years food, but it was fancy and really delicious.

There was a piece of shrimp coated with a sweet mayonnaise, daikon cake, half a piece of spring roll, some steamed dim sum, salad, a soup with a gyoza in it and for dessert a jin dui filled with sweet bean paste...oh an a bowl of congee topped with crunchy spring roll skins, pieces of pickled daikon and green onions...whew!

Had to try Deb's caramelized pineapple with dark chocolate, after seeing her version, here.

I didn't grill mine, just used a non-stick pan, and my sugar coating was a bit watered down, so it took awhile to caramelize, but it was so delicious with the dark chocolate.

The sweet from the pineapple and the tartness from the dark chocolate...great with wine.

And then there was an evening when we had buri sushi (amberjack).

The pieces of fish were so thick and fresh. Love the supermarket's pre-made food area.

Recently tried this imperial porter called "To whom it may concern, we didn't ask you what kind of beer you like, sorry".

Made with black sugar it had hints of chocolate and caramel...yum!

Celebrating 30 years, Haagen Dazs came out with a rose ice cream...wow the rose flavor is so nice, not perfumy or overpowering.

On the other hand, their sakura ice cream was bad, really bad....even if sakura translates to cherry, it isn't the same cherry as bing or sour cherries...blah!

Ginormous potato, and only 38 yen!

I boiled the potato and mixed in a tablespoon of andasu and some mayo for a kind of potato salad...delicious!

What have you been enjoying?



Friday, February 14, 2014

day(s) of chocolates

It's Valentine's Day today, I still don't know what I'm giving to Satoshi...

But, I have been doing "research"...

Belgium's Baru had a marshmallow covered with dark chocolate and toasted coconut sprinkles...more coconut please!

A local mall had a contest to guess how many pieces of chocolate they used to make this...the Mona Lisa!


Spain's Bombon Cudie, caramelized marcona almonds covered with dark chocolate & cocoa powder.

Cellar de Chocolat, a chocolatier, Naomi Mizuno, in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto.

This chocolatier has won awards and was recently at Salon du Chocolat.

This chocolate was what he won awards with an apricot ganache covered with milk chocolate & sprinkled with a little Dead Sea salt.

Sweet-salty combination...perfect!

Dari K, a chocolatier from Kyoto, who uses Indonesia cacao.

Top: Raja-roasted cacao bean covered with chocolate and topped with nibs
Kismis-homemade rum raisin
Bottom: Jeruk-lots of orange peel in the ganache
Ratu-plain chocolate truffle

My favorites were Raja & Jeruk

How can you go wrong when something is called "chocolate covered cloud"?!...Baru's Fleur de sel caramel & Ginger Lime marshmallows.

Fleur de sel caramel marshmallow.

Ginger Lime marshmallow.

Love the list of ingredients on the back of the package too, "May contain soya, milk, nuts, tree nuts, wheat, gluten and traces of peanuts and lots of fluffy happiness"

Hope you enjoy this day with your special someone!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

happy valentine's day

Happy Valentine's Day...in Japan, it's only for the guys...which I've told you about here and here.

This is the recipe I used for the truffles, though I only made half the recipe.

Super easy and only 2 ingredients, well 4, if you consider the matcha powder and chopped almonds.

I tasted some before giving them to him and we also had some extras to enjoy too.

Have a nice Valentine's Day, everyone!

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

a day of chocolate (s)

Today is Valentine's Day, for those of you who don't know, it's a little different in Japan, which I've written about here.

Here's what I gave Satoshi...

A box of baseball shaped milk chocolates...

Here are some other chocolate items we've enjoyed...this Choco-chofu.

A chocolate mochi covered with a chocolate crepe. Satoshi brought this back from one of his business trips to Okayama.

To enjoy this you need to "nuke" it for several seconds, if you nuke it for too long, it gets too oozy and turns into a blob.

Blobby or not, it was delicious, chocolatey but not too sweet.

Belgian Cafe-Tasse's lait & speculoos, milk chocolate filled with a cinnamon ganache.

Cafe-Tasse's noir & speculoos, dark chocolate (54%) with a cinnamon ganache.

Either one is delicious. The ganache is more like a cream with speculoos (spice cookies) bits in it.

Italian Vestri's Vellutata, 30 grams of creamy chocolate hazelnut goodness.

This was delicious on toasted baguette.

Not sure what "vellutata" means, but it sounds like "velvety".

From my host-sister, an assortment of ice creams by Jean-Paul HƩvin. There were 5 different ice creams in the assortment, Satoshi and I ate half of each on separate occasions.

One with vanilla & salted caramel bits, one caramel ice cream, 2 dark chocolate and 1 milk chocolate.

All were rich and delicious. (Thank you!)

Lastly, France's Bernachon's 3rd generation, Phillipe, has a line called "B de Lyon", I tried their Gingembre (ginger) tablette.

Dark chocolate (maybe 65%) with ginger gelatin-like sticks...the chocolate and ginger match perfectly though Satoshi said he would nix the ginger.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!