hey...look down!

When you walk around, are you only looking at the scenery or do you look down at the ground sometimes? Well, in Osaka, I've found that you should look down at the ground. No, you will not find money on the ground (rarely will you ever!), but you will be able to by-pass all of the poo that is left by many pooches' owners (who are too lazy to pick it up...shame on you guys!) and you'll also see some interesting manhole cover art.

Rant aside...This is the manhole cover for our city, Minoo. It features our waterfall, Minoo-taki and the momiji (maple leaves) that Minoo is famous for.

The city next to us, Ikeda, has a picture of a bird. Someone handpainted this one, which makes it a little easier to see.

And from another neighboring city, Suita, the expo of 1970's symbol is in the center called Taiyonoto or Tower of the Sun, which was designed by an artist named Okamoto Taro.

I also found an interesting Japanese website which lists photos and a little explanation of all the manhole covers of all the cities within Osaka prefecture here (actually when you look through the whole site they list most of the manhole covers for the different prefectures throughout Japan and a few abroad!)

Pretty interesting stuff!

sugoi!

I just checked my site meter (the thing that counts how many hits you get and tells you where they are coming from) and it showed that the Food Network had referred several people to our blog, so I clicked on the link and...Sugoi! (WOW!) we are listed on the Food Network's list of food blogs that they are reading! We are totally flattered to be on their list....Thank you!

mabo tofu

The weather has been kind of weird, it starts off sunny, which gets me to do a load of laundry, and then turns all cloudy and rainy....sigh.

For tonight's dinner, I decided to try a new mabo tofu recipe. I've used a recipe which I received from a friend every time I make this dish, which I've posted about here and here, but this recipe was in a cookbook that I have from a Szechuan restaurant which I posted about here.

I like it, but it doesn't taste quite as I envisioned it would. So, before I pass on this recipe, I think I'll tweak it here and there.

Hope your week is going well.

new friends

I recently received an email from someone who introduced herself as Audrey. 

The first email was kind of weird because all it said was "we can bring you some chocolates, let me know". 

But when I checked my other email address, a clearer picture came from it. 

Apparently, she was googling for information about something in Osaka and came across my blog.

If you have been reading my blog, you'll know that Satoshi takes German language lessons and that I take beading lessons and of course, how much I heart dark chocolate. 

Well, Audrey felt that those points, parallelled her and her husband with us. 

You see, she is a jewelry designer and her husband is a former pastry chef, who was trained in Germany by a Swiss master and is now an artisan chocolatier in Oakland.

She wrote that they would be travelling to Japan and would be in Osaka and Kyoto for a couple of days, and would like to meet up for coffee. 

Now, I like to make new friends and meet new people and try to see the good in everything but I still had mixed feelings about the whole idea--kind of cautious about the whole thing because I didn't actually know who this person was contacting me through the internet and yet, kind of excited because a jewelry designer and her chocolatier husband wanted to meet up with us! Wow!

So, I asked Satoshi if he would come with me, and though we were both cautious about the whole situation, we arranged to meet them in the lobby of their hotel. 

The weather was just awful, sleety and cold. Still, we were able to locate their hotel and meet up with them. 

We chatted a bit and asked them what they had been up to and where they wanted to go for lunch. 

They had seen a shop in their guide book which advertised homemade soba (buckwheat noodles). We made our way to Shijo Avenue and went to Gontaro. 

The restaurant was very nice and we enjoyed chatting over lunch.

After lunch, we walked the nearby Nishiki market.

If you've only shopped in a supermarket, this place is a great experience. 

All kinds of fresh and dry foods all along this arcade there is definitely an air of excitement.

They had wanted to try some cakes, so I took them to Au Grenier D'or which just off of Nishiki market, I've posted about this place before, (here). Satoshi's dessert was called Pyramid--a chocolate sponge cake with ganache, a chocolate coating and cocoa powder is sprayed onto the coating to give it a kind of fuzzy look--It is supposed to look like the pyramid at the Louvre.

My dessert was called Sicile, a dacquoise japonais meringue with a fluffy ground almond filling and pistachios on top. 

We all tasted each other's desserts and had a nice tea time. 

Audrey had a grapfruit tart and Michael had a tart with all kinds of nuts on it. Everything was delicious!

After dessert, we walked to Kiyomizu temple and enjoyed all the shops and sites along the way.

Since we were all getting a bit hungry, we stopped in to have chanko nabe at Kawamura. Chanko nabe is the dish that sumotori (Japanese wrestlers) eat everyday. 

It is a pot filled with stock and different kinds of meats and veggies. 

I think the owner of this restaurant used to be a sumotori. 

Satoshi has taken me to this restaurant before and their food is good. 

It was nice that Michael and Audrey were willing to try new foods and we all had a nice time talking and drinking.

It was then time to say goodbye to our new friends and we promised to meet up again either in Oakland or Osaka.

We were fortunate to receive some of Michael's designer bars: From the left clockwise: 72% cacao ginger bar made from single origin criollo Ecuadorian chocolate, 72% cacao orange bar made from single origin criollo Ecuadorian chocolate, 65% cacao cherry, cranberry and blueberry bar made from single origin criollo Venezuelan chocolate, and 65% cacao orange and cranberry bar made from single origin criollo Venezuelan chocolate. Thank you!

I'm not an expert on chocolates, but these chocolates were really delicious--creamy and a bit acidic and I was impressed with the amount of fruits that were on these bars, usually other chocolates kind of skimp on the fruits. 

These bars had a nice balance of fruit and chocolate and all matched really well with the type of chocolate that was used. 

Satoshi, who is a milk chocolate lover was impressed by these chocolates and enjoyed them. 

These chocolates also went very well with the 2003 BIN 555 Shiraz that we had from Wyndham Estate.

If you are in the Oakland area, or are planning a visit to SF, check them out:
Michael Mischer Chocolates
3353 Grand Avenue
Oakland, CA 94610
Phone: 510.986.1822
Open daily 12:00-21:00

Audrey Daniels
3313 Grand Avenue Suite 202
Oakland, CA 94610
Phone: 510.836.7550

It was a great weekend, hope you have a nice week!

chanpi beef salad + extras...

Last night, I re-tried making nasudengaku. This time, I cut the eggplant, soaked it in water and then "pan fried" it in a non-stick pan. Then I drizzled the dengaku miso sauce onto the eggplant and put it into the oven for 10 minutes. It was good and at least the eggplant was juicy this time.

Satoshi's mom gave us this umaki (unagi (eel) wrapped (maki) around gobo (burdock)). I don't particularly like unagi, but it is one of Satoshi's favorite foods. I was quite surprised that it didn't taste too much like eel, I think the smoky flavor helped.

Tonight's dinner was a recipe that I've been wanting to try called "chanpinyurou" or beef salad flavored with orange peel. There is a Szechuan restaurant in Tokyo called Tenyu that makes this dish. The owner/chef, Shima Norio has a cookbook, it shows how to make most Szechuan sauces from scratch. I have never eaten here, but the photos in the book sure look delicious! I didn't have a lot of the Chinese ingredients, so I used what I had and tried it. I think it came out pretty good. Although the sesame flavor is quite strong, you can also taste some orange and there is a little kick from the chilies.

Beef salad flavored with orange peel from "Tenyu" by Shima Norio
Serves 2 or 3
100g thinly sliced beef roast cut
1/4 lettuce
20g mizuna (potherb mustard greens)
10g carrot

Sauce
2 T chanpijan *
100cc soup or hot water
2 chili peppers
1 T Shao Hsing (chinese cooking wine)
1 T sugar
1 T vinegar
1.5 T shoyu (soy sauce)
1 grind of pepper
1 T cornstarch

1. Cut the lettuce to 1 cm pieces, mizuna to 5 cm pieces and julienne the carrots.
Place all veggies into cold water to crispen them up.
2. Put all the sauce ingredients into the pan and heat.
3. Add the beef and cook for about 3-4 minutes.
4. Lastly, add the cornstarch mixed with some water to thicken sauce.
5. Put veggies onto a plate and then the beef onto the veggies.

* to make Chanpijan
50g chanpi (orange peel)
100cc white sesame oil

Soak the dried orange peel in water for 6 hours to rehydrate.
Scrape the white part of the peel so that there is hardly any (this is to take away the bitterness), julienne the peel.
Add the peel to the sesame oil and steam for 30 minutes.
This sauce makes 120g and will last for 2 weeks in an airtight container.

the past couple of days

First off, thank you all for your New Year messages, I was surprised when I opened the computer to see them. When I posted about the foods we had for New Years, I had forgotten to mention that I didn't make most of the foods we had on New Years, yes, I cheated and bought a lot of them mainly because the cost of buying the ingredients was kind of outrageous.

On January 2nd, Satoshi and I went to his parent's home in Kyoto. They live near Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavillion). I had heard that Satoshi's brother and his family would be there, but when we got there, it seems Satoshi "forgot" that his brother and family couldn't make it...So, it was just the two of us with his parents and his uncle. They took us to the Takaragaike Prince Hotel for a luncheon buffet at a French restaurant called Beaux Sejours.

Here is the lobby decorations and a pair of kadomatsu
at the entrance to the hotel. We had to wait quite a long time to get into the restaurant as they were not taking reservations, but lunch was really good.

After lunch we decided to visit Kamigamo shrine. Most visit shrines and temples during the first few days of the New Year, to pay their respects and pray for the New Year, this is called hatsumode, I wrote more about it last year, here. The grounds of Kamigamo shrine are huge! Since it was quite rainy, the amount of people were substantially less, so it was actually nice not to be pushed and shoved.

In the center of the grounds, there is large area where they hold various events. These two mounds of sand called morizuna are there year-round as a representation of the mountains that the gods came from.

As you leave the shrine, in the parking area there is a little mochi (rice cake) shop called Aoiya. They are known for their yakimochi (grilled rice cake). They are only a dollar a piece and come in plain (white) and yomogi (mugwort). Both have the sweet bean paste inside.

After visiting the shrine, we headed back to Satoshi's parent's house and had some o-sechi and these cute manju (steamed bean cakes) called fukuwauchi--which means the "good luck comes inside" made by Tsuruya. These cakes are different from others because they use a bean called otafukumame--which means lots of luck beans. Otafukumame is actually soramame (lima or fava beans) cooked with sugar to sweeten them up. It was a nice visit and a nice way to start the year.

Today, the weather was clear and sunny. We walked towards the next city, Ikeda (about 30 minutes from us). I had accidentally found this route while walking back from an English lesson last month and wanted to show Satoshi all the amazing finds.

The first place we stopped at was this shrine called Sonpachiyakujin also known as Shakain. We were amazed that this huge shrine was tucked away in a little neighborhood so close to us.

They also had their pair of kadomatsu at the entrance. If you notice there is a plant at the bottom that looks like a leafy cabbage, this is called habotan (leafy peony). I don't think you can eat it, but you can see it around in various arrangements during autumn and winter in Japan.

On our way back, we stopped in a bake shop called Mademoiselle Liliha. I had wanted to ask about the name of this place, but everyone was too busy. The reason is because we have a Liliha bakery in Hawaii. We tried two of their baked treats. (UPDATE: as of 9/19/08: this place has since closed)

Satsukiyama Romance-a heart shaped cookie sandwiching chocolate cream.

Satsukiyama Golf Road-we weren't too sure why this treat was named what it was but it does look like a golf ball, don't you think? It is a puff pastry enveloping a whole marron glace.

Whew, this post was a long one, hope no one fell asleep while reading it.

Satoshi goes back to work tomorrow. Have a great week everyone!

foodie new year!

It is the New Year here in Japan. I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! This year's Chinese astrological sign is the inoshishi (wild boar).

Unfortunately, Satoshi had to work today. It's not that he wanted to work on the first day of the New Year, but it is his turn to...plus, if you were on a trip and ran into some kind of trouble, you'd want someone to answer your call, right?

This morning we had ozoni. It is a traditional soup that most families have on the first morning of the New Year. I wrote more about this last year, if you'd like a re-cap, check it out here.

For lunch, I didn't feel much like cooking, especially since it was only for myself. But because many of the shops aren't open today, I decided to see what was in my freezer...I came up with croque monsieur--a very fancy name for a ham and cheese sandwich. I sliced some red onion and sauteed them in some butter, then put some butter into the frying pan and toasted both sides of the sandwich. Then I sprinkled cheese on top with some pepper and oregano and put the whole thing under the grill for 5 minutes. Having it with a bowl of cafe au lait made me feel like I was in Paris...


Dinner was our o-sechi (traditional dishes for the New Year). Our rice was a kamameshi type (rice cooked in an iron pot called a kama), with kuri (chestnut), kuromame (black beans) & gomoku (usually five ingredients--carrot, konnyaku (devil tongue jelly), sansai (wild mountain plants--warabi (fern shoots), zenmai (flowering royal fern)), takenoko (bamboo shoots). The rice is cooked with a shoyu (soy sauce) base which is put into the pot along with all these ingredients. Nowadays instead of having a kama (iron pot), you can cook this dish in your rice cooker.

We also had kohaku namasu (carrots and white turnip soaked in vinegar, sugar and mirin).



Kobumaki (rolled kelp), this dish is to bring yorokobu (happiness).

Tazukuri (dried anchovies), which prays for a good harvest.

Hinode cut kamaboko (fish cake cut to look like the sunrise). The fish cake is made in the celebratory colors of white and red.

Nasudengaku-roasted eggplant with a dengaku miso sauce. The miso sauce is a little sweet. I made the miso sauce with 80g red miso (soy bean paste), 1.5 T sugar, 2 T mirin (sweet rice wine) and 1/3 cup of kombu dashi (kelp stock). Since I roasted the eggplant and shiitakes in the oven, they came out a bit dry. I'll try cooking them in the frying pan again soon. This dish isn't part of the New Year celebratory foods, but I thought it would be a good dish to accompany all of our other dishes.

We toasted with a cup of sake (rice wine)--a limited edition ginjo (highly milled rice with or without alcohol added) called Manotsuru Tokimeki made by Obata brewery, from the island of Sado in Niigata prefecture.

During this time of year, you are supposed to warm up the sake, but I couldn't find my tokkuri (bottle to warm up the sake). So I decided to use my reishu (cold sake) ochoko (cups).

Cheers! Here's to a great start of a foodie new year!