haneda

Satoshi has a tour assignment soon so he wanted to scope out Haneda airport.

First we had lunch at Terminal 1 at Tenho, a tiny ramen shop in business since 1993.

We found out about this place when it was featured on a tv show. 

It’s a gem so not many want to tell you about it.

Their popular item is the Tenho men. Shoyu based ramen topped with veggies, seafood and a slurry.

Satoshi also ordered their half fried rice too…("A" set) 1150 yen (tax included)

I ordered the Canton yakisoba…980 yen (tax included) this is similar to the Tenho men except not served in broth. 

I loved this, the noodles are a little crispy and the parts touching the sauce are chewy…kind of similar to cake noodles.

The little cup of soup was bland in comparison to the flavor of the noodles though 

To get around Haneda, use the free shuttle buses, look for the yellow bus stops.

Next Terminal 2…I checked out all the vending machines while Satoshi went to check out the areas he wanted to

I was impressed there were so many dessert vending machines!

And even one selling PCR tests...4000 yen! and masks.

And then we shared junior scoops of Blue Seal ice cream…550 yen (tax included)

Mint Chocolate for me, Chocolate Cookie Swirl for Satoshi.

Lastly we went to Terminal 3

If you remember we were here a couple weeks ago.

While Satoshi went to check out things, I browsed

Hopefully Satoshi's tour will go smoothly.

banana juice

In Osaka, they have a drink called mixed juice (mikkusu ju-sue)

all sorts of fruits are blended with milk, a liquidy smoothie.

You can find this drink at some Osaka train station kiosks, people standing around drinking variations of this.

You can watch them blend it in a blender, drink your order then go catch the train.

I had some really ripe bananas, so I put this together the other morning.

Serves 2

1 really ripe banana

2 teaspoons kinako (my kinako (soy bean powder) also has ground black sesame and ground almond in it)

1 cup your favorite milk

Whizz until everything is blended

NOTES: sweet from the banana, this was delicious

I'll make this again

yakishisomaki

Been wanting to recreate this ever since coming across this at the market

I see them in the markets frequently so I've never tried the recipe I had bookmarked 

Yakishisomaki is a dish found in Tohoku, they eat it as pupu (appetizer), have it with Japanese tea, add it to their bento.

Each family has their own recipe so there are different ones all around the internet.

I made up this based on different recipes for the ingredients I had and for the amount I wanted to make.

Please adjust the recipe to your dietary needs and if you want to make more than the amount I made.

If you do use white miso, you might need to adjust the sugar since I feel white miso tends to be a little sweeter than other types.

Kat’s yakishisomaki : makes 2 skewers

6 shiso leaves, washed, dried, stems cut off

5 grams nuts, weighed then chopped medium fine

10 grams miso

7 grams sugar, I used brown

shichimi (seven spice mixture)

2 toothpicks

1 tablespoon of oil

Mix the miso with the sugar then add the nuts and shichimi

It will come to a thick paste

Portion the mixture into 6

Face the dull side of the leaf upward and put the point of the leaf pointing towards you

Put the miso mixture near the point then roll the point tightly upwards 

Skewer the roll with the toothpick

Repeat until you have 3 rolls on 1 toothpick

Heat the oil in a pan on medium and fry for about 30 seconds on each side

Drain on a paper towel

Enjoy!

NOTES: this was delicious and easy to make

Tohoku produces walnuts, so that is the nut that I used, but you can use whatever nuts you have on hand.

If you are allergic to nuts, you may want to use ground sesame seeds instead.

Also, if you want to freeze them, fry them first then put them into the freezer.

I’m not sure if there is a symbolic reason why 3 rolls are on a 1 skewer other than it just might be easier to fry many rolls at once.

I'll make this again.

when life throws you curves

We've had this blog for almost 18 years now.

Learning to write code to embed links.

Had bots/trolls steal whole posts.

If you've read our blog from the beginning you know all the good and the bad that we've gone through.

We've made lots of friends along the way too.

Mostly virtual, but we've managed to meet up with some IRL (in real life) too.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know this title usually isn’t something good…

The other day, I got an email from Google's Album Archive, saying that they will be phasing it out as of July 19th.

It told me to download the files that are in Album Archive, so I did.

But after doing so, most have errors on them or something and cannot be transferred, WT?!

The files in question seem to be all the photos on this blog!

I thought by moving my photos from Flickr to Google Photos would solve Flickr limiting my photos (by the way, all my photos are still on Flickr, I just cannot add any more)

I even re-pasted the photo on each post that was linked to Flickr!

I am frugal and not willing to put any money into this blog

Long story short, after July 19th, this blog may not have any photos on them.

I don't know about you, but I use this blog when I cannot remember "that time we went somewhere" or when I need to cook something

It won't be fun without the photos to go along with the "stories", but I am not ready to shut down the blog just yet.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know what is happening.

Hoping things are better where you are.

a year later

Last year, we tried making umeshu for the first time.

If you remember, when we first put the ume in the bottle with the alcohol, it overflowed, talk about drama!

I removed some of the alcohol from the bottles and put it back into the shochu bottle.

When I went to Hawaii last year, I labelled the leftover shochu bottle so that "someone" wouldn't drink it while I was away...ha!

Fast forward: Wednesday made one year.

I went to the dentist on Wednesday, so I worked on the umeshu yesterday.

The jars from my favorite (for now) peanut butter are the perfect size for "one cup" umeshu.

With the ume, I separated the flesh from the seeds

I froze the flesh and will use them in the various ways, V, introduced me to through this blog post (thanks V!)

The seeds, I froze most, but used 10-12 and cooked it with rice.

The alcohol from the ume really made the rice smell like alcohol so next time I would cut back the amount of ume seeds, and would add dashi and other seasonings to make it more like takikomi gohan.

at 9:30 in the morning, I also "quality controlled" with the tablespoon-ish amount of umeshu that came out when I separated the fruit from the seeds.

I added some carbonated water and it tasted pretty good to me...I hope it was 17:00 somewhere..

We'll be having some of this with our pupus tonight and I plan to send a couple of the one cups to BIL & SIL.

Backstory : It was SIL who gave me the idea to try making umeshu in the first place when we were in Kyoto for MIL's memorial service last March...Hikone grandma used to make the best umeshu.

Hope you all are doing well.

Have a safe weekend.

hari

Hari is a tiny cinnamon roll shop.

Unlike most cinnamon rolls, these are 4-inch squares.

The woman who bakes and runs the shop used to live in Sri Lanka. 

She makes about 10 different flavors and uses Ceylon cinnamon 

During the pandemic and now on weekends, they sell their cinnamon rolls as pre-orders only.

The other day, I saw something online that they would be selling their cinnamon rolls first come first serve, so I went to check them out.

I got there 15 minutes before their opening time and there was already a line, I was 13th (I counted).

The limit was 4 rolls per person and most of the people in front of me were buying 4.

I chose the matcha sesame azuki...560 yen (tax included)

And the original...560 yen (tax included)

So delicious! not overly sweet

A little more expensive but I was pleased that all her flavors are the same price.

I'm glad we got to try these and hope to try other flavors in the future.

Hari

1-4-2 Denenchofu

Ota, Tokyo

Closed Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays & Mondays

Hours: 11:00-until sold out* check social media for their selling methods

**cash only

uzu

I've been wanting to try Uzu's cinnamon rolls for some time now (Uzu in Japanese means "swirl")

They are located in the Daikanyama area of Tokyo.

Luckily, they had a pop up at our station.

For the price these were kind of tiny.

I would say it was about the size of an oldskool muffin?!

This shop uses flour made in Japan and butter from Hokkaido.

We tried the salty maple and pecan nuts...480 yen (tax included)

And the original...410 yen (tax included)

They recommend you heating them up before eating.

Delicious..buttery with a cream cheese frosting.

Not worth the price though, but I'm glad we tried them.

Uzu

13-8-112 Daikanyama

Shibuya, Tokyo

Closed Mondays

Hours: 11:00-18:00