coconut sorbet

I made a batch of coconut pearls.

When the liquid was still warm, I made a serving of Che Chuoi...yum!

After that, we had several servings of cold che chuoi, and then I threw the remaining 1.5 cups of the sugary coconut pearl liquid into my ice cream maker to make coconut sorbet.

After taking it out of the freezer, I had to wait almost half an hour before I could scoop it, but it was delicious.

The weather is still weird here, cold hot cold hot...I was even feeling a little under the weather the other day because of it.

Feeling much better but definitely need the sun to generate some mojo.

Hope you have a good week!

yamaya

I heard about this place, Yamaya, and was interested in having Satoshi try this place out.

He ordered the gyusuji nikomi (simmered beef scraps)...980 yen this comes with a soft boiled egg, a salad, a big bowl of rice and miso soup.

The meat wasn't the best of cuts so it was simmered for a long time and you can tell because it was so tender and flavorful.

I ordered the buta shogayaki (pork ginger)...980 yen.

This came with a salad, lots of shredded cabbage, miso soup and a big bowl of rice.

The pork was tender and very flavorful too.

For your greens, use the mentaiko (spicy pollack roe) dressing. I thought it would be "fishy" tasting but there was a lot of citrus in there and it was delicious.

The reason why I wanted Satoshi to try this place is because he loves mentaiko.

They have a bowl of mentaiko and a bowl of takana tsukemono (pickled chinese mustard cabbage) in the middle of the table, which you can take as much as you want to eat with your rice.

If you want seconds of rice you can have more rice too...Satoshi had seconds (plus half of my rice and half of my shredded cabbage (I must not be feeding him at home...eep!))

This place doesn't have many seats, so you have to share your table with others, this is called aiseki (eye-say-key) in Japanese.

We'll be back.

Yamaya
5-1 Kakuda-cho, Umeda Rakutenchi Bldg 1F
Kita, Osaka
Phone: 06.6316.0888
Lunch: 11:00-14:00, Dinner: 17:00-23:00

things I'm liking

If you take a look near the left corner of the photo there is a box of sugars.

Belle de Sucre, has an assortment of sugars called Meli-Melo.

I opened this box of sugars and was surprised, it was only held closed by a piece of plastic around the box.

On the inside, the sugar wasn't in a package or anything. Lots of trust in that one piece of plastic...

These are cute and colorful.

Byron Bay's muesli cookie..."crammed with oats, currants, cranberries, apricots, almonds, sunflower seeds & linseeds."

Soft and moist, this cookie is definitely crammed with "stuff"...delicious.

I found a bag of peanuts at the market recently.

In Japanese they are called rakkasei. I was hoping they were raw so that I could make a batch of boiled peanuts, but found out they had already been roasted.

At 200 yen for 300 grams, I thought these were a steal.

What are you enjoying?

11.11.11

It's 11.11.11 today...Pocky Day here.

Not a holiday or anything, but a chance to eat some delicious pocky.

Pocky are crackers that look like pretzles dipped in chocolate and decorated with nuts or pureed fruit.

In fact, there is another product called Pretz which are the undipped versions of Pocky and are more savory.

This Pocky is shaped as a heart...cute, yeah?!

It's Friday, have a good weekend and happy Pocky Day!

lanai

Thought I only had one goya this year, but found this one hidden...it was about 6 or 7 inches long.

I made this into a "champuru" with the goya, lup cheong and egg.

This one was really bitter but delicious.

The champuru went nicely with a Bass Pale Ale, an English beer, 5.1% alcohol. A little bitter aftertaste but delicious.

I was reading up on Swiss Chard and Beets and the info mentioned that you could pick the leaves as long as they were 4 to 6 inches long.

So I picked some and wilted them with some spinach that I bought.

We had this with a little dollop of mayo...yum!

The Italian parsley is doing well, I pick some whenever I want to add it to something I'm cooking, especially mushrooms and pasta...mmm!

I noticed this the other day, the mint is half dark green and half light green, I wonder why that is?!

Oh and the bergamot died...had this weird powdery mildew that I read about online...boo!

How is your garden doing?

made in usa

A great food find at Kaldi Coffee recently...natural peanut butter.

Peanuts and sea salt...that's it.

Be sure to mix it well as there is oil from the peanuts on the top.

Even after mixing, this was a little more liquidy than I am used to, but delicious all the same.

Also, it isn't creamy, it is crunchy. The bits aren't all uniform in size which makes it more unique.

It's made in the U.S.A., maybe not a good carbon footprint, but it is as natural as you can get with peanut butter.

standard bookstore

After French class last Tuesday, I had lunch at Standard Bookstore located in NU Chayamachi Plus.

I tried their chili dog & drink set...840 yen.

There is no table service, after ordering at the counter, they give you a number and when your order is ready, you go back to the counter to pick up your food.

Everything on a silver tray (fancy, yeah?!)

The chili wasn't too spicy, and could have been spicier. The hot dog had a nice snap and the red onions had a bite to it...the onion flavor (read onion breath) stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

What surprised me was the scoop of whipped potatoes...ice cold, buttery, smooth and delicious. (It is rare to find mashed potatoes in Japan, not even KFC serves it here.)

Another thing that surprised me was the "American" sized coffee.

I am looking forward to trying more items on their menu and a nice thing is that they also have free WI-FI....I'll definitely be back.

Standard Bookstore
NU Chayamachi Plus
Umeda, Osaka
Phone: 06.6485.7139
Hours: 11:00-21:00