'tis the season

As Rowena said in her comment, "Sounds like beer season is still trying to hang on".

Well, it is still indeed beer season and I recently picked up some brews from Minoh Brewery.

Their pale ale...very fruity and easy to drink.

Their weizen is cloudy, starts off fruity and has a slight bitter after taste.

Their pilsner is nice too. All three are perfect for this heat.

While walking around Umeda, I found honey wheat pretzels at Seijo Ishii (in really small bags)....When I got home, I melted some butter, added a sprinkling of dill, garlic powder and some powdered ranch dressing and baked it for 10 minutes.

Not the same as my mom's seasoned pretzels, but close.

I also found some fresh figs at the market, so I got some bleu cheese, drizzled some honey, nuked it for 20 seconds and then sprinkled some chopped walnuts.

The weather is still humid and hot but I think I'm doing a good job at keeping my tummy happy.

daydream

The weather in Japan at the moment is still, in my opinion...miserable. Winds do blow, but very warm winds...blah!

This is great for laundry because it dries in like seconds...but bad for plants because it needs more water than usual.

At least if you are in the shade it is a little cooler, but not as cool as I would like.

Have a feeling that "Autumn" here will be somewhat delayed and shortened. Hopefully figs will start popping up in the market to cheer me up.

In the meantime, I have been gazing at my photos from Hawaii and praying for tradewinds.

Hope you have a nice week.

tacos el nopal

Saturday we visited MIL and had lunch with her. She seems to be fine though her leg is giving her trouble.

In the early evening, we made our way back from Kyoto to Osaka and stopped off at Juso for dinner at a Mexican restaurant which Rona (a reader) gave me a tip about awhile back.

The restaurant has about 20 seats, plus seats out on the terrace.

We sat inside since the weather was still very humid.

I ordered a margarita and Satoshi ordered a beer.

We also ordered guacamole (this only came with 4 chips), the nopal (cactus) taco and coctel de camaron.

The guacamole was delicious, though we wished it came will a little more chips.

The taco was delicious also, the cactus texture reminded us of a very soft green bell pepper.

Coctel de camaron was a Mexican style shrimp cocktail. Very refreshing with the lemon.
Satoshi ordered a margarita and since we were still hungry we ordered chilaquiles, a flauta & burrito.

The chilaquiles was beans with a tortilla stewed in tomato sauce topped with queso fresco (fresh mexican cheese).

The flauta reminded me of tacquitos, deep fried corn tortillas filled with meat and topped with salsa and some sour cream.

The burrito was filling...filled with rice, chicken, cheese and topped with salsa and some sour cream.

Be prepared to wait for items as the owner and (her daughter?) make everything from scratch....total for our meal was 5670 yen (about US$56.70) a little pricey, but for homemade Mexican food, we thought it was worth it.

We enjoyed our meal and would like to try their lunch sometime. (Thanks for a great tip, Rona!)

Tacos el Nopal
3-28-7 Juso-higashi
Yodogawa, Osaka
Phone: 06.6305.6331

omiyage

While I was in Hawaii, I picked up two shopping bags, as omiyage for myself.

The first one was from Foodland, only US$1.99+tax (as long as you have their Maikai card otherwise it is a little higher), and it was so cute...Spam Musubi.

I actually heard about it from Pomai's post. His post also shows more photos of the bag.

This bag holds quite a bit.

The second bag was from Whole Foods, only US$.99+tax and it is HUGE.

While at WF, I also spotted Japanese tourists picking up the smaller bags, probably for omiyage (souvenirs) too.

Only thing about these two bags is that with this humid and hot weather, it sticks to me as I walk to and from the grocery store, so I'm going to use them this winter.

things I'm liking

Some things I'm liking...

Pretzel M&M's...crunchy pretzels inside of the sweet M&M shells...glad I bought another bag of this...addicting!

Marufuku coffee's "instant" drip coffee. We actually got these before I left for Hawaii.

Many coffee companies in Japan have this style of coffee which people give as gifts throughout the year.

This type of coffee is great to have especially if you are travelling...just tear off the top of the filter, hook it onto your cup then pour hot water over...delicious morning coffee without it actually being the instant tasting type.

This lemon scone mix that my blog friend, Pocky sent me while I was in Hawaii. (Thank you!)

I added some dried blueberries, I should've done it before adding the water and mixing, but they still turned out great.

I think there are also some bits of candied ginger in there, but hadn't read the package before throwing it out, so it is either ginger or lemon bits in there.

Still delicious all the same.

Mango Tango Tea from the Tea Spot, another gift from Pocky.

Black tea, with passion fruit and mango...so good iced.

Burberry's Brit Sheer.

I saw this in Sephora, but bought it at DFS while I was waiting at the airport because I was looking for the perfume/body lotion combo package.

This fragrance is fruity & floral combining pineapple, lychee, mandarin orange, yuzu, white musk and resins.

Perfect for summer.

Bolder Breakfast Tea also by the Tea Spot and also from Pocky.

This is a black tea with some Puerh tea & hints of chocolate...smells and tastes delicious.

Had this iced but this would also be nice hot with a splash of milk.

Lastly, Back to Nature's Bar Harbor Blend. Roasted almonds coated with a vanilla glaze, dark chocolate covered almonds and cranberries.

Heard about these from my Mom & brother and found them at Whole Foods. This is good. I was looking at their site and the Pacific Heights Blend also sounds delicious (actually all their blends do!)

What are you liking?

It is Friday here, hope you have a nice weekend!

ummm

Man, I knew it was hot here, but c'mon, it is already September...

I guess the typhoon that is supposedly coming this way (or maybe it already passed?) is partly to blame.

Humidity is evil...you know it is hot when you turn on the cold water and only get warm water...

Trip home was long...main meal was so-so, I was surprised we had a choice, on my flight from JPN to HNL there was no choice.

Ted's Bakery does the dessert (would've loved chocolate haupia pie...their chocolate cake with passion fruit frosting...at least the cake was moist, frosting was meh!)

And they actually served us baked manapua (char siu bao) for our snack WITH ice cream! NOTE to JAL: warmed baked manapua would be much more appreciated than ice rock cold one.

Actually didn't sleep much on the flight and watched "Sex and the City 2", "The A-Team" and a Japanese film, "Railways"...all very entertaining.

Baggage took awhile to come out, and I "squeezed" my way out of customs...the guy started asking me in Japanese if I spoke Japanese, so I stuck out my fingers and motioned "a little", he then proceeded in broken English, "do you live here?", I replied then let me pass.

I think if I spoke to him in Japanese he would've asked me to open my bag, so I'm glad I didn't say much.

With the heat as bad as it is, we slept for most of the night with the a/c AND fan on...until the timers turned everything off and we had to wake up to turn them back on.

All the stuff I brought back was okay, well, except for 1 can of Vienna sausage, it was a little dented, no biggie.

Other than that, it is nice to be back. Did I mention that humidity was evil?

odds & ends

Random stuff...a REALLY skinny truck. I think this one was a Hawaiian Electric truck.

A rose that bloomed in our garden on a rainy morning. This plant is quite old, so I was surprised that it is still flowering.

I think this is the last crossing sign to actually say "don't walk" and "walk" in Hawaii....(near Kahala Mall)

A nice VW van.

A cute VW bug. (Saw both VWs on the same morning. Afterwards, heard there was a VW show at the beach, I wonder if that is where both were going...)

Theo 70% chocolate and Equal Exchange 71% chocolate, can't wait to try these.

A hibiscus that bloomed in our yard. My dad said it was because I gave it "love" (a.k.a. water).

An andagi (okinawan donut) from Ige's. Had quite a bit of these this trip.

An orchid that also started blooming because I gave it "love" (water).

Can you believe that 2 months have gone?...so fast!

LOTS of eating, lots of catching-up with friends and family, and most important, spent lots of time with my parents & grandma.

Not looking forward to the extra degrees of heat plus added humidity...Satoshi asked if I wanted to stay a little longer until Japan "cooled down", I told him not to tempt me. Hope you weren't bored by my "vacation", I surely wasn't.

See you on the other side!