osaka castle bairin

The weather has been warming up. Unfortunately, we have also been having major air pollution from China.

Personally, I think we all gotta stop giving them so much work to manufacture stuff for us.

Anyway, on Tuesday, I thought I'd check out the bairin (apricot orchard) at Osaka Castle before an appointment I had.

There were tons of people who also had the same idea.

The orchard is only 50% in bloom, but it was still quite nice.

I hope Satoshi and I can check it out again soon.

hole'd baguette

Saw this cute food truck in front of Daiei the other day.

They always have different vendors parked here, sometimes it is a baby castella vendor, sometimes a melon pan vendor and sometimes a taiyaki vendor.

Hole'd Baguette is similar to Hawaii's Puka Dog, though I've never tried the one in Hawaii. (By the way, "puka" means hole in Hawaiian)

The only difference is this version uses baguettes.

I love Japan's sausages, they always have a nice snap.

I ordered the meat sauce dog, which came with some oozy cheese sauce, spicy bolognese meat sauce, a little lettuce...380 yen.

I think the portion may be a bit small for "guys" but this was perfect for me.

I'd buy from them again.

boulangerie parigot

Tried a bakery called Boulangerie Parigot recently.

Their canelé wasn't as good as Canelé du Japon, but it was bigger.

I really liked their assorted nut danish.

It definitely didn't skimp on the amount of nuts.

From the photo, the fig walnut bread looks skimpy but it wasn't. I liked this one.

I also liked their apple walnut, though Satoshi thought it was a little too sweet.

They also sell sandwiches, but too bad they don't have an area to eat at. Still, we'll be back.

Boulangerie Parigot
9-3-4 Uehonmachi
Tennoji, Osaka
Phone: 06.6774.5087
Hours: 7:30-20:00
Closed Mondays and every 1st and 3rd Tuesday

mangiare kureha

It had been about 10 years since I ate at Mangiare Kureha.

It was one of the first restaurants Satoshi and I ate when we moved to Minoo (pre-blog).

I got together with Hiromi the other day and thought it might be nice to re-connect with this place and have lunch there.

It was kinda nice...

We both started with salads, mine was a warm roasted veggie salad, while hers was a caponata type salad.

Our main dish was supposed to be a pasta with pepperoncino (chili garlic oil), sakura ebi (sergia lucens) and spring cabbage.

But what came out was the photo above. A pasta made with pork, cabbage and sauteed in some olive oil & salt.

We thought it was kinda weird because we had envisioned the shrimp, cabbage and a spicy pasta.

After eating some of it though we realized they made a mistake.

We asked about the dish and the cook said that he had made a mistake, he apologized and offered to make us new mains, but we were already quite full, so we said we would eat what he had made.

They gave us a little scoop of ice cream on the house for the mistake.

Our lunch with coffee was 1100 yen. Debating whether to give them another try, probably will.

Mangiare Kureha
2-4-11 Asahigaoka
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.763.0338
Closed Wednesdays

happy girl's day

Thought I'd share some of the Girl's Day decorations I have collected over the years.

When I was in Hawaii last summer, I brought them back to Japan with me.

If you're interested in knowing more about Hinamatsuri, I've written about it in detail here.

Hope you have a nice Girl's Day.

p.s. the anonymous spam was getting kinda ridiculous, so I'm sorry but I have to stop allowing anonymous comments.

natsumikan marmalade

The other day, I got together with Kazumi and several of her friends to make natsumikan (chinese citron) marmalade.

Apparently, every year they get together to make this marmalade, but this year was a little different.

See, Kazumi broke her wrist last month and hasn't been able to use her right hand, well, I was there to be her "right hand".

From 19 fruits, we had two large colanders of peel and nearly two liters of juice.

After cooking it with some sugar, we came out with 15 jars of marmalade and 1 large ziploc bag (we ran out of jars!).

There was lots of chatter, lots of contemplation as to how to go about making the marmalade (apparently every year is a little different).

Good times.

kikkodo

It is amazing what you come upon while walking around.

I recently found this tiny senbei (wafer/cookie) shop called Kikkodo.

Apparently they have been around for more than 100 years! And they do everything by hand. Amazing.

These ginger senbei caught my eye...700 yen for a package of 12. (I counted them, there are more than 12 in the package, more like 18)

Delicious, crispy with a lot of ginger flavor. Perfect with a cup of green tea.

Kikkodo (UPDATE: no longer in business)
4-6-9 Katsuyama
Tennoji, Osaka
Phone: 06.6772.4168

p.s. It's Friday here, I hope you have a great weekend!