saturday

Saturday, Satoshi went on a field trip with his travel guide school.

Since it had been about 2 years (pre-pandemic), I went to Yurakucho to check out my favorite antenna shops…first stop, Kochi.

I bought things I’ve bought before, some okazu ginger & tomato miso paste.

Next door…Okinawa.

They had portuguese sausage! Bummer I was so excited I didn’t read the label because…sorbitol! why you gotta put ‘um in the sausage?!

I also bought zebra bread…peanut butter, brown sugar & margarine (boo!)…730 calories if you eat the whole thing…Satoshi and I shared this (still 365!), it was ono toasted!

Down the street…Hiroshima.

More stuff I have bought in the past neko mame & furikake.

Up the street, a cute police box.

A replica of the first gas street lamps.

Teal..a new chocolate & ice cream shop on the grounds where Shibusawa Eiichi once lived.

Chocolate bar…bummer this had sorbitol (what is it with artificial sweeteners?) in it…it was boozy & fruity…but boo for sorbitol.

Caramel bar…caramel cookie, dried cranberries & caramel, like twix bar but better! no sorbitol, yeah!

Dinner from Kitade Tacos…pork carnitas taco rice.

The pork was tender, smoky, kinda like kalua pig.

The avocado jalapeño sauce & salsa were spicy and delicious.

I’m glad I tried them and will be back whenever I am nearby.

12128…it was nice to be outside.

Oh, and I also loved the different art on the construction wall in front of Tokyo Station.

Teal

1-10 Nihonbashikabutocho

Chuo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.6661.7568

Closed Wednesdays

Hours: 11:00-18:00

Kitade Tacos

Grandsta Tokyo (inside of JR Tokyo Station wickets) B1

Hours: 11:30-22:00 open daily*

*cashless transactions only

this and that

Tokyo people...I love passing by this house.

The couple opens up the glass doors during the warmer months and every time I pass by are always sitting here.

Sometimes looking out at the street, sometimes with their backs facing the street like this.

There is a goldfish in the bowl on the table too (took this photo on the fly so it is not aligned)

This arare flavored with Jane's Krazy salt is crunchy and herby delicious.

Planner on the left is 2021...the one on the right is 2022...for the past couple of years I've been using my masking tapes to decorate my planners.

The early warning thingy on one of the weather apps I use...the red "x" is the earthquake center and the red ring gets bigger to show the area that the earthquake may hit as the time counts down..interesting but still scary...

This week Japan found their 4th Omicron case, crossing fingers the case numbers for this variant do not increase.

This week Tokyo’s daily case count was 7 for the lowest and 21 at the highest.

Japan has started their boosters but it will be awhile before we are eligible to receive ours.

Our temps have dropped quite a bit making ventilation a challenge, though I do keep a window open while we are home.

Have a safe weekend.

araiimo

The other day I went to Benny to buy kabocha which they had advertised in their ad.

The ad said it was from Hokkaido but the label said from Mexico…boo!

So instead I picked up a bag of araiimo. 

In Japan it is called satoimo, but growing up my family called it araiimo, a type of dasheen.

Surprisingly, it was my first time cooking with it.

Luckily the internet had info on how to peel it.

The site recommended different ways but the easiest was to peel it then soak it in water.

Since it can get slippery, I used a dish cloth to hold it and a vegetable peeler to peel it.

Try not to get the orb wet or the “slime” will start.

After peeling, I rinsed it and put it in some water as I prepared the other veggies.

While boiling the stalks of the hakusai and araiimo, in another pan, I sautéed onion, chicken with some garam masala & curry powder.

I added the boiled hakusai and araiimo with the liquid to the sautéed chicken…added some diced canned tomato and some consommé

I added the leaves of the hakusai and let it wilt down.

Dinner is served...chicken soup curry.

I think the hardest part was peeling the araiimo, I'm glad I tried cooking with it and will use it more often.

Have you cooked with araiimo, what is your favorite way to cook it?

gadgets

Remember we learned a new way to cut our apples?

Well, since then, I adopted my mom's apple corer.

The core of these sanfuji apples are a little larger than the corer.

But it still makes it easier and fun.

 

knife storage

How do you store your knives?

In Japan they have these rack thingies attached to the cupboard door (probably because most of us do not have counter space for those knife blocks)...do you have these things on the cupboard door where you live?!

I've only been using it for the past couple weeks but it drives me krazy because after using my knife, I wash it and put it into this thing…

Then I realize I need to use the knife to cut something else and need to do the whole routine again...p.i.t.a.

When we were living in Osaka, I was balancing the knife on two chopstick rests on the outskirts of the sink, but for some reason on this sink, the water was leaving a calcified mark on the sink, making it hard to clean and there was also lots of mold on the chopstick rests...eww!

I'll need to think of a better way to make accessing my knife easier...

1st world problems...

saturday

Saturday we had breakfast at Columbia...it might not look like it but their portions are a bit small, dunno if we'd go back for breakfast but it was nice to check out.

Afterwards we walked towards the Tama river and stopped into Mickey, a bakery that apparently has been around for about 20 years.

We picked up some items for lunch...their ham and egg sandwich, egg sandwich, fish sandwich and keema curry pan.

The curry pan was disappointing not much filling, but the others were delicious...I'm sure we'll be back whenever we are nearby.

It was nice to be able to see Mount Fuji from the Tama river.

To cross over to Kanagawa you need to cross the Tama river, and the Keikyu and JR lines do just that.

There is a really low area underneath the Keikyu line that you can pass under, I shot a short video of it here.

From here we walked back home stopping at Zoshiki to find something for dinner.

We stumbled upon an izakaya, Miraku, selling their oden...earlier that morning I was watching an episode of "Cool Japan" and they were talking about oden.

I thought it was kismet when we stumbled upon some, so we picked up 2 servings for our dinner. (1 serving was only 300 yen (tax included))

It didn't quite match with red wine but it was definitely a change from our usual weekend pupu dinners.

Hope everyone has a good week.

Mickey

2-23-13 Tamagawa

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3758.467

Closed Mondays

Hours: 7:00-19:00

Miraku

2-16-13 Nakarokugo

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3732.0735

Open daily 17:00-21:00

this and that

Yesterday we went to Kameido to check out Kameido Gyoza which has been in business since 1958. 

We tried eating here when we first moved to Tokyo but the shop had just been featured on tv and the line was too krazy back then.

This time around, we arrived 10 minutes before their opening time and were first in line.

The gyoza wrappers are thin and crispy and meets the gyoza snob approval.

This shop only sells gyoza...each person must eat at least two plates (total 10 pieces), after the minimum they will ask you if you want to continue eating more.

We ate the minimum (Satoshi also had a beer) and left though Satoshi said he could've eaten more…we’ll be back when we are in the area.

We walked off our gyoza by walking to the Ryogoku area.

Seeing sumo wrestlers.

Stumbled upon Ganso Naniwaya Honten's taiyaki which has been in business since 1909 and is related the the Naniwaya Honten in Azabujuban…delicious! love how they fill the tail with sweet bean paste too.

Then we checked out Yokoamicho Park.

So pretty.

And the Former Yasuda Garden.

There were so many couples in kimono taking their wedding photos here that we tried not to photobomb their pictures.

And walked to Asakusabashi to have coffee and carrot cake at Bridge…Satoshi had a smoked salmon sandwich.

I love the building it is in…we’ll be back.

16963...the weather has been really nice though we did have a really torrential rain storm the other morning and there have also been several quakes.

This week Tokyo's count went as low as 8 and as high as 21.

And everyone is talking about the new variant, Omicron, hoping it won't throw a monkey wrench into  everyone's plans for the rest of the year though it is looking a little bleak.

Have a safe weekend.

Kameido Gyoza

5-3-3 Kameido

Koto, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3681.8854

Hours: 11:00-20:00 open daily *cash only

Ganso Naniwaya Honten

1-24-2 Kamezawa

Sumida, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3623.2667

Closed Sundays

Hours: 10:30-17:30

Bridge Coffee

1-13-9 Nihonbashibakurocho

Chuo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3527.3399

Hours: 8:00-19:00