the tee by mlesna

After La Marina de Bourbon closed, I was a little bummed, but then a new tea shop opened in its place...The Tee by Mlesna.

I've tried the Mlesna Tea shop in Kyoto before and liked it.

I ordered the cream tea, this came with two scones, some tea jams and a pot of tea.

The tea I chose was their "finest quality earl grey".

Delicious with the scones.

Satoshi tried their caramel chiffon cake which came with a pot of tea.

He chose a peach tea.

He said that the chiffon cake was more like a bread than a cake, I guess it could have that kind of texture.

The tea jams were a caramel tea and orange tea. I preferred the orange one. The caramel tea jam was really liquidy almost like maple syrup and really sweet.

Satoshi really enjoyed this place, it was quite serene which is unusual for Japanese cafes which kinda echo and have people talking amongst themselves so loud most times that you can hear their conversations.

I was kinda peeved with the tea tasting they were having at the counter, the owner was going into all sorts of details about the teas, and with the amount the customers were tasting I was pretty sure their tastebuds were all whacked.

Kind of a mixed experience, but I think I'll be back for lunch...maybe.

The Tee by Mlesna
Herbis Plaza B1
Phone: 06.6343.0220
Open 11:00-20:00, when Herbis Plaza is.

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 Hévin. 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!

el.zocalo burrito

After reading Dayna's comment about El.Zocalo Burrito, I was interested in trying them out.

Then, after reading Tabelog, Japan's Yelp, it seemed that their portions were kinda big.

So, instead of going alone, I dragged Satoshi along.

The shop is located close to the Yotsubashi station and was easy to find.

We ordered a shrimp burrito set to share, this came with the burrito, a soft drink, guacamole and chips...980 yen.

The burrito is filled with rice, veggies and lots of tiny shrimp, delicious.

The chips are fried before serving and are delicious with the guacamole and a little drizzle of salsa.

We also ordered a plate of chili bean nachos to share, this seemed like it was minced chicken, kidney beans, cheese and salsa...600 yen.

Everything wasn't too spicy, and could have been spicier, but we agreed that it was perfect for people trying tex-mex style food for the first time.

It's not an area we frequent, but we'll be back when we're in this area. (Thanks Dayna!)

El.Zocalo Burrito
1-9-6 Kitahorie
Nishi-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6533.0337
Closed Mondays
Hours: 11:30-22:00

fondue failure

The picture looks good right?!

Actually the cheese wasn't smooth, quite lumpy, a big lump to say the least.

After dinner, I went online and found out, you need to coat the cheese a little with flour or cornstarch.

You shouldn't mix it too much....there were quite a bit of "don't"s, all which I think I did...oops!

The fondue pot that I have uses a candle, but this doesn't heat the whole surface, only where the candle is.

I used Samsoe and Maribo (Denmark cheeses), 80 grams each and 1/2 a cup of cooking sake (rice wine) because I didn't have any white wine.

According to my fondue pot's directions, it said to melt the cheese with the wine on a double boiler, so I did.

Afterwards, I read something online that said to melt the cheese first then to add the wine already warmed....

Anyway, next time, I think I will make it more like a bechamel, just adding more cheese to it.

Satoshi, who is always a good sport about what I serve, liked it, he said, "it doesn't taste bad, it just isn't oozy"

We both agreed that sweet potato pairs nicely with cheese, I am making this again.

sosaku ryori kakehashi

Sosaku ryori Kakehashi is a restaurant located in a quiet neighborhood in the Fukushima area of Osaka.

Sosaku means creative, original. The chef creates dishes that aren't classic Japanese.

They started us off with an amuse bouche of fuki (butterbur) and gobo (burdock root)

Then came a trio of sashimi (sliced raw fish), with a little wasabi, this was fresh and delicious.

Next, we ordered the maguro kim chee tartar garlic mayo...chopped maguro, chinese yam, cashews, sliced onion, tomato, drizzled with a kim chee garlic mayo sauce.

To eat this dish, they serve it with Korean style nori (laver that is coated with sesame seed oil)...yum!

We agreed that the flavors reminded us of poke.

Next up a fried potato dumpling coated with crushed rice cracker and filled with seasoned minced pork.

The dumpling was sitting in a nice thick soup with lots of mushrooms.

This was delicious, lots of flavor from the dumpling and pork, hints of ginger, a little chewiness from the rice cracker coating and lots of mushrooms.

The berkshire pork was a "kata-ro-su" (which I think literally means pork shoulder roast). It was sauteed in some chili paste and served with grilled vegetables (eggplant, zucchini & eringi) and a salad.

The meat was so tender and not spicy.

Lastly came the tempura assortment.

Vegetables...sweet potato, pumpkin, myoga (Japanese ginger), leek, warabi (fiddlehead), asparagus, shiitake.

Some seafood...shrimp, squid and a white fleshed fish.

In Japan, most restaurants serve the heads of the shrimp, fried up crisp, a great source of calcium. We also eat the tails too.

It was a great birthday dinner, there were so many items on the menu that we wanted to try.

We'll be back. (Thanks Satoshi!)

Sosaku Ryori Kakehashi (UPDATE: 2016 this place is no longer in business)
2-7-4 Oyodominami
Fukushima, Osaka
Phone: 06.6458.4488
Monday-Friday 11:30-14:00, 17:00-23:00
Saturday + Holidays 17:00-23:00
Closed on Sundays

umeda hagakure

Diagonal from Tomato Laomen is Umeda Hagakure.

When we passed it to go to Tomato Laomen the other day, Satoshi said, "so this is where it is".

Apparently it has a reputation, a good one.

The shop is tiny, seating only 14 at the counter. You will almost always see a line running out the door.

They make their own noodles, you can see workers putting dough through their noodle machine.

Satoshi ordered their bukkake udon...750 yen. This came with all sorts of toppings like shiitake, kamaboko, sansai (mountain greens) and a raw egg.

The sauce is thick and concentrated and at the bottom of the bowl.

He said it was good.

This is the owner. He believes that if you serve cold noodles it is hard to "fake" anything, everything is "out in the open".

If it is your first time eating certain dishes in his restaurant, he tells you how he wants you to eat them.

I ordered the kijyoyu (pure undiluted soy sauce) udon teishoku (set)...800 yen. This came with some kayaku gohan (rice cooked with veggies and aburage (fried tofu)) and some pickles.

(Actually Satoshi wanted to order his dish as a set, but they don't allow it, so the waitress, said that I should order a set and give my rice and pickles to him.)

"Grab a pair of chopsticks and "stand by" (which to the Japanese means "get ready")", he told me.

He then brings a bowl of noodles over and puts a good handful of grated daikon (long white radish), handful of green onion, and a good squeeze of sudachi (lime) seeds and all and then makes 3 passes across the whole thing with the kijyoyu (pure undiluted soy sauce)....that's it.

"Grab two noodles, no more...and DON'T mix it, you'll change the flavor", he says.

Totally nervous, I grabbed 3 noodles by accident and got scoldings...ack!

Talk about nervous! (which is why the photo of Satoshi's noodles are blurry, thought I was gonna get scoldings for that too)

But even with him checking your every move, this was one of the best sanuki-style udons I've had. The daikon had a natural sweetness and the soy sauce, just the right amount of flavor without coming across as salty.

They have other versions including some with hot broths, but this simple version has to be their best.

We'll be back.

Umeda Hagakure
Osaka Eki-mae Dai-san Building B2
Phone: 06.6341.1409
Closed on Sundays
Hours: Monday-Friday 11:00-14:45, 17:00-19:45
Saturday 11:00-14:30

It's Friday here, hope you have a good weekend!

so...

So, it was my birthday the other day...just another day, Satoshi had to work, so we wouldn't be doing anything special.

Since I didn't want to cook on my birthday, the day before (Monday), I made a batch of hoisin sauce chicken and some cole slaw.

It had been awhile since I had opened the hoisin sauce bottle and...it was "welded" shut, not even that rubber thingy I have to get a firmer grip on it would open it.

To be a housewife, I think you sometimes have to be a handyman a.k.a. McGyver, so to remedy the situation, I took out tools...a hammer, a long screwdriver, the can opener...

Well, the can opener didn't work, and I was about to pound a hole into the cover of the jar with the screwdriver, instead I slipped the screwdriver between the bottle and cap and gave the screwdriver a little jiggle, and heard the air release...whew!

I was able to open the jar. (Will I be able to open it next time?! I'll have to wait and see)

Before dinner on my birthday, I decided to open a bottle of wine which I had bought on Monday too.

Weird, the corkscrew was having a hard time going in...little did I know that the cork was dry...bah!

So dry that it broke the opener...

I again took out the hammer and screwdriver...I also remembered we had a waiter's corkscrew (it is the type that has a knife on it) and took that out as well.

Only problem was I didn't know how to use it because I was used to using the one with the "wings/arms". Thank goodness for the internet, they had video of how to use the waiter type.

So now that I knew how to use the waiter type, I tried it but it was all in vain because the cork was not budging.

So, I took that broken corkscrew and the hammer and used it to push the cork down.

There were splats of wine until the cork finally went all the way into the bottle, but I was at least able to get the bottle open.

As I poured some wine into a glass over a filter, the cork blocked the entrance and then there was a point where I got a flood of wine when the cork moved...eep!

Micro-bits of cork in my glass and much stress later...I was finally able to sit down to dinner.

How was the wine? meh, it was a little light for my liking, for all I know, it oxidized a bit with all that "drama"...

By eight, Satoshi wasn't home yet, so I lit a candle and had cake.

The cake I bought was a roll filled with chocolate ganache by Mior. The cake was a honey chocolate cake that was very moist.

Delicious.

Lots of adventure on my birthday to say the least, hopefully the year will be a happy and healthy one.

We had the other half of the cake for breakfast, with the addition of some fruit for some nutrition (ahem)

Satoshi is off for the next couple of days, so hopefully we'll be able to go out for dinner on one of them (minus any drama).