the reno

About a week ago, I saw the reno guys lugging these rolls in the lobby and then noticed we had one on our lanai.

Saturday, they put the sheet onto the lanai.

It kind of looked like "flooring".

Was amazed at how quickly they could install it.

Only a couple of minutes. 

I also realized they did the lanai that faces Haneda too.

Oh and every day, when I go out for a walk or groceries I gotta be careful because I don't know what kind of work they did the day before.

They tape areas off that they don't want us to touch or walk on.

Just gotta walk slowly and pay attention, especially whenever coming in or out of our apartments as they could be right outside.

Almost a month left, hoping they will finish earlier than forecast.

this and that

Surprised at how fast they cleared this block...sad too.

One of the buildings used to be an animal hospital.

We used to always check out their cats whenever we passed by...

Have you seen this movie? "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"...it was kind of a mixture of the past and present, not too many nice reviews online, but I enjoyed this.

Brought back nice memories of Mr Rogers and made me realize how much I remembered his songs.

FIFA World Cup starting soon...everyone getting into the spirit to cheer on Japan's team.

Month 5 for the umeshu...looking good.

Tried this "instant" oden by Kanematsu Foods.

The package is a serving for 1 and has 6 items...egg, daikon, konnyaku, gobomaki, chikuwa and konbu.

And it is packed in the soup, just heat 5 minutes and eat.

I added some blanched kabu (turnips) since I thought we should have more veggies...the broth was a little salty (we only took a couple of sips) and everything was on the softer side but for 238 yen (tax included), totally worth it.

Benny Supermarket had a sale on kuromame, so I bought a package for New Years...138 yen (tax included).

Around this time of year I start to look out for New Years foods and when I see it on sale, I usually will buy because right after Christmas the prices goes krazy.

Tokyo People...when you only have a bicycle but need to transport a shelf...

Tokyo's daily case count is up, Tuesday it was 11,196! and hasn't decreased yet...

Have a safe weekend.

daily life

Super short video of some of the things I saw along the way to the bakery and market yesterday.

Hope your week is going well.

reminiscing

Two years ago we were exploring the Gakugeidaigaku area

Six years ago we were reconnecting with a pupu

Nine years ago we were enjoying Japan made dried apples

Thirteen years ago we were learning about aosagi in our area

Sixteen years ago we were cooking one of Nate's recipes (miss our talks!)

tonchan

Saturday Satoshi was coughing & sneezing…he doesn’t do it into his elbow, so you guessed it I caught whatever he had…grr

And since someone gave his germs to me, he was feeling way better afterwards and you know I still gotta cook…

Anyway, feeling a little better on Monday, I made it to the market. (luckily we didn’t have a fever)

I’ve made Kei-chan in the past, but learned of a new dish from a recent episode of "Kodoku no gurume" called Tonchan

Kei-chan is what they call chicken in Gifu prefecture and Tonchan is what they call pork

I based the sauce on what I posted before except I used this sauce and then added some chili paste, mirin and miso.

This was delicious with rice....

If I had thought ahead I should have thawed out some ginger, but since I didn’t, this would be without ginger.

This was an easy dish to put together and a nice way to test our taste buds too

out and about

Thursday, Satoshi was going to eat out with friends, and I wanted to send something to my host sister for her birthday, so I went to Jiyugaoka.

I've been wanting to check out Yasuhiro Seno's chocolates.

He apparently moved his shop from Kobe to Tokyo earlier this year.

When you enter the store there is a citrus fragrance which surprised me but got used to after awhile.

I chose several chocolate bon bons and also purchased a slice of the cake au chocolat...2179 yen (tax included).

The bon bons are sold by weight...33 yen per gram, so the heavier the bon bon you choose the more the price.

Iyokan is a seasonal chocolate made from homemade confit

Pistache..white ganache and pear liquer topped with an Italian pistachio

Jasmin..jasmine tea and apricot liquer ganache covered with a dark chocolate.

Croustillant..homemade praline

Traditional Noir..homemade praline using almonds and hazelnuts covered with dark chocolate.

All were nice and I look forward to trying more in the future.

I also went to Comme'N to pick up some items for lunch...

Brioche maroe...soft brioche dough topped with cream cheese and chestnut paste, 380 yen (tax included)

Kind of like a cheese cake-y bread...I enjoyed this.

Petit dog...walnut baguette with hot dog and cheese. 400 yen (tax included)

The baguette was on the harder side, but this was tasty

Baguette...we had this with wine 300 yen (tax included)

Love! the crust was crisp and the innards were soft even after freezing then toasting

The trees were changing colors.

The ginkgo trees near Denenchofu station were changing as well.

And the Christmas decorations are up too.

Yasuhiro Seno

5-39-1 Okusawa

Setagaya, Tokyo

Phone: 03.6715.6989

Business hours: 10:30-18:00

*check social media for days closed

this and that

Not sure why I had Thanksgiving on my brain, we usually don't celebrate it.

But since I did, I made us a plate with poached chicken from the freezer, some cranberry chutney that my mom made too many moons ago that we’ve been eating super slowly, maitake sauteed with onions, avocado, roasted pumpkin, baby leaf greens and a lemon dressing.

Did you view the blood moon the other night? apparently for the moon to be lined up again with the sun, earth and another planet will be in another 350 years?! or something like that.

I was amazed we could see it especially through the reno netting.

Tokyo people...the police waiting to catch the rolling stops.

Wicklein's (lebkuchen) gingerbread stars which I found at Kaldi.

They are the soft type of gingerbread filled with dried fruits and glazed or covered in chocolate.

Weirdly I actually like the glazed one more than the chocolate one.

The chocolate one seemed overly sweet.

Satoshi said the same thing.

Ichimaruhachi's chestnut filled imagawayaki.

So much chestnut filling and the matcha outside was delicious too.

I needed a new bottle of maple syrup so I could make some granola and realized the prize has kind of sky rocketed...

The cheapest I found was 645 yen (tax included) and only had 250 milliliters of syrup in it. (the last time I bought the same sized bottle the price was about 399 yen or so...)

And the largest size I found was 2580 yen (tax included) and had 1000 milliliters of syrup.

Apparently the Japan government said that in 2022, 20,000 (maybe more?!) products' prices will go up...eep.

I'm sure more prices will get higher as the war in Ukraine and global warming continues.

I hope you are all doing well, Japan's daily case counts are going back up.

Have a safe weekend.

ps it's Pocky Day but I haven't bought pocky in awhile since they have artificial sweeteners in it.