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!

wine & a winner

Wanted to share with you the wines I bought from Takamura wine...a Barolo, this one seemed like it was medium body.

And this Pinot Noir by Cono Sur, seemed really light...meh!

Bummer because the ones I tried in the past were good.

I hope to check out Takamura Wine again soon...

And now the winner of my birthday giveaway...

K of Never Turn Down a Cupcake.

Please send me your snail mail address, so I can send out your care package.

Thank you all for entering!

sosh the market bar

Checked out Sosh the Market Bar for breakfast one Sunday morning.

They have one thing on their morning menu...the Power Breakfast...950 yen.

The breakfast is only served on weekends from 8:00 and consists of...

An hour limit to the salad bar...all their veggies come from areas around Japan

The roasted onion was super sweet!

Everything like the ham, eggs and toast were from different areas of Japan too.

A daily veggie juice, this day it was carrot and your choice of drink, I chose coffee.

From my pics it may not look like much, but it was super filling, and super quiet...I'll be back.

Sosh the Market Bar
Grand Front Osaka, South Building 1F
Kita-ku, Osaka
Phone: 06.6485.7315
Weekdays 11:00-25:00, Weekends 8:00-26:00

p.s. Satoshi's classes ended this past Sunday so we'll be doing other things on Sundays until April.

so...

So what did I do on my birthday? Well, I had an appointment early in the morning in Umeda.

Afterwards, I went to check out Salon du Chocolat at the Osaka Isetan.

They had a chocolate "bar" so I had champagne (Janisson Baradon Vendeville Brut) and chocolates...1155 yen.

It was almost 11:00 but I figured it was happy hour somewhere in the world...

Here are the chocolates I tried...Arnaud Larher's Magie (with the magic wand: red berry tea ganache), Jean-Charles Rouchoux's Praliné sésame (with the french flag: sesame ganache, olive oil & basil essence), Franck Kestener's Privilège (textured top: cinnamon flavored almond praline, ginger confit & caramelized rice puffs)

In my defense, can I just say there were tons of other housewives doing this, and the one sitting next to me was already on her 3rd drink when I sat at the counter?! (ahem!)

Anyway, after having some bubbles and sweets, I went to look for lunch.

I ordered the City Bakery's burger...980 yen. Since I wanted avocado and bacon it was 200 yen extra for each item! And my iced coffee another 360 yen.

This was a monster of a burger...they don't add fillers, just beef, so it was kinda on the dry side.

At least they give you half an avocado and about 3 slices of bacon...

The waitress laughingly said I could use the paper wrapper to pick up the burger or use my knife and fork.

I ended up eating it with my knife and fork...I was so full afterwards!

There was also some really salty veggie pickles (in back of the burger) and some delicious potatoes, so I didn't eat the bun.

That night, Satoshi was coming back from a business trip, traffic was bad (because all of Japan was supposed to get snowed on), so by the time he came back it was 8:30-ish. Dinner was late by my standards (I usually eat earlier), luckily I had had that huge lunch to tide me over.

We had some wine and nibbles for dinner and for dessert, Angelina's Mont Blanc. Chocolat for me and the Standard (chestnut) for Satoshi.

Satoshi gave me these cute "Kat" towels. The towels are so soft. Love the black cats on them too.

I also got my wish of some snow and received lots of messages and cards from family and friends. I also enjoyed all the messages on the giveaway post.

All in all it was a nice birthday...thank you everyone!

hikawa

We recently tried a soba shop in our neighborhood, Hikawa.

The owner is a potter, I think he makes the plates & bowls that he serves his soba in.

He renovated his work area into this restaurant himself...cool!

Lunch started off with some soba.

He doesn't serve "the same types of soba" that you'd find in most other soba shops, instead he gives his customers a chance to taste soba "au naturel".

The soba comes cold without a soup and you are encouraged to try it with different things like coarse sea salt, a soy sauce...so delicious! a little nutty in flavor with a nice chew to them.

Satoshi tried the soba nigiri set...1400 yen.

This came with a yakionigiri (grilled rice ball) wrapped with a thin soba (buckwheat) crepe. His meal also came with a piece of soba tofu and some pickles.

Satoshi said this was different but delicious.

I ordered the galette complète (literally complete galette)...1600 yen.

The owner uses all buckwheat flour in his galette unlike some other shops which start with a white flour base then add a little buckwheat flour to it. (He's checked out his competition!)

There was camembert cheese, ham, and fruits like kiwi & pear in there...sweet, salty and the crepe was crisp on the outside.

So good!

The owner also let me taste a piece of soba tofu, this was dense with lots of buckwheat flavor, nutty and a little smokey.

We were the only customers at the times, so after eating we chatted with the owner.

He was so nice that he also let us taste his thick soba noodles, these were chewy, almost like mochi.

With our meals also came a thick porridge made from the soba water.

He isn't doing the kind of soba that everyone is used to, in fact he said that some customers have left because he doesn't have tempura on his menu....their loss!

Still, he says he enjoys what he is doing...a good thing.

We'll be back.

Hikawa
1-1-17-H Iguchido
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.761.0159
Open Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday
Lunch: 11:30-15:00
Dinner*: 17:30-21:00 *by reservations the day before

maison kayser

Before I start today's post, I want to tell you that we stayed indoors all day yesterday.

The weather was forecast to be snowy or rainy, well, we weren't taking any chances and just stayed put.

We woke up to white covered roof tops but it soon melted with all the rain.

I think Tokyo was supposed to get snow for the next two days?!

Stay warm everyone!

On to today's post...

Next door to A.C. Perch, is Maison Kayser.

I had heard good things about him, and learned that he had opened a shop in Osaka, so when I checked them out, I ordered their steak lunch...1300 yen.

This came with a salad, all-you-can-eat bread...this round was fig, walnut, a slice of baguette and sweet potato.

The baguette was a nice "hard type" whereas the fig, walnut & sweet potato were a "soft type" of baguette.

My problem was that they also served fries with the steak.

The fries were super crispy and delicious, but with bread?! too much carbs...

The steak was well seasoned and had a shoyu-onion-garlic sauce.

Still, when they came around with the tray of bread, I decided to try two more slices...this time turmeric (with hazelnuts & other assorted nuts) and orange peel.

I think they should vary the types of breads you are allowed to try instead of serving basically the same type of bread with different "goodies" in them.

I ended my meal with tea and a slice of lemon. Well, it was more like a slab of lemon, so thick!

A nice touch was that they serve the tea with a teeny financier.

Don't know if I'll be back to have lunch here, but I do want to try some of his other baked goods, so maybe I'll be back...

Maison Kayser
Abeno Harukas Kintetsu Department Store 1F
Abeno, Osaka
Phone: 06.6654.6190
Closed when Kintetsu Department store is
Hours: 10:00-21:00

pork stock

So, after boiling the pork to make rafute, I kept all of the stock, which came out to about 4 cups.

With 1 cup of it I tried making ju-shi, which is an Okinawan rice dish cooked with veggies and pork.

I tried a recipe for fu-chi-ba-ju-shi (fu-chi-ba is yomogi (mugwort) in Okinawan, ju-shi is rice cooked with veggies and pork)

Anyway, I didn't have fresh yomogi, and the recipe didn't really have a specific amount to add to the rice, so I just added some julienned kale at the end.

The flavors were really light almost bland because I didn't add any pork when I cooked it, just the pork stock, a little shoyu and gobo (burdock root), I think this was good for Satoshi since he's supposed to watch his salt.

And with the rest of the stock, I threw almost everything I had in my fridge into this soup.

Some thinly sliced pork belly, ito-konnyaku (stringy devil's tongue), tofu (soy bean curd), gobo (burdock root) carrots, daikon, kim chee, a little miso (soy bean paste), a little leftover rice and the pork stock.

The ito-konnyaku made it seem like we had noodles in the soup and was perfect for the cold snap we had.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend.