foodie wednesday

Last Wednesday, Satoshi had the morning off, so we headed to Umeda for lunch.

The place we were planning to try didn't open for lunch until 11:30, so we popped into the Nord Kaffe for some coffee and a half an hour of day dreaming.

I think this cafe's furniture is from IKEA, I liked the modern feel to it but disliked the smoking-non-smoking wall in between as there was an open area at the top of the wall, perfect for all that smoke to billow over.

I tried the ka-ka, which apparently means cake in Swedish, this was not cake nor cookie, the texture was very moist, almost like uncooked cookie dough in bar form. I did like the earl grey flavor though...smudge of whipped cream totally unnecessary but there for aesthetics. ....90 yen (about US$.90)
At 11:30, we walked around the corner to Henry. Apparently this place has been in business since 1947.

Satoshi ordered the fish set and I ordered the meat set...both 1000 yen (about US$10).

Both meals came with a salad topped with smoked salmon and parma ham.

Satoshi's fish was itoyori (goldenthread/nemipterus virgatus), I think it is a type of snapper.

My "meat" was grilled chicken which was topped with a grainy mustard sauce. I really liked this dish. The meat was kind of smokey and the sauce really light.

Dessert was a perfect teeny taste of pannecotta.

The nice thing about this restaurant is that if you order before noon, you can get a free drink with your meal, we chose hot black tea.

Although Satoshi had to rush off to work afterwards, it was nice to be able to have lunch together (especially during the week).

Henry
Osaka Station #4 Bldg, B1F
Phone: 06.6345.2571
Open: 11:30-15:00, 17:30-22:00

Nord Kaffe
around the corner from Henry

cafe tous les jours

Last month after we tried Tea Salon Musica, I read up on Cafe Tous les Jours which I mentioned is located at the back of the Tea Salon.

This cafe serves pasta, curry and quiche as well as desserts.

I chose the curry set. You can choose between chicken or spinach curry (I chose spinach curry), rice or baguette (I chose baguette). This also came with a small salad and drink (I chose iced chai)...950 yen (about US$9.50).

I was surprised with this curry as there was hardly any "stuff" in there, just two pieces of potato. The spiciness and flavor was delicious and I loved that they gave me a lot of thick sliced bread to dip into the curry.

(I hate those places where they only give you two slices of bread (sometimes really thin slices), how can you enjoy mopping up sauces with only two slices?)
Satoshi chose the Saturday special 1780 yen (about US$17)

This came with a huge salad, antipasto plate, choice of pasta (uni (sea urchin) cream or kanimiso (crab innards)), dessert and choice of drink.

The uni cream pasta seemed to be the signature item here, so that is what he chose. There was lots of cream, tomato sauce and uni (sea urchin). If you like uni, you'll like this dish.

Satoshi's dessert was rum raisin ice cream and an azuki bean cheesecake. For his drink he chose hot chai.

(If he didn't have to run off to German language class, he said he surely would have had a glass of wine with this lunch (as it is a choice for the prix fixe menu!))

My only peeve is that they allow smoking, unlike the tea salon which doesn't.

This place is popular, within the time we were there, the seats filled up and there was quite a bit of chatter in the air.

We'll be back.

Cafe Tous les Jours (located at the back of Tea House Musica) :this shop closed in 2013
1-4-4 Dojimahama (Aqua Dojima Bldg, Fontana Wing 3F)
Kita, Osaka
Phone: 06.6342.7886
Open: 11:30-14:30, 17:30-22:30, Closed Sundays & Holidays

tako meshi (the other half)

With the other half of the dried tako, I made another pot of tako meshi. This time adding some gobo (burdock). I "whittled" the gobo and added it to the tako and rice.

I had frozen the other half of the stock thinking I could use it for the batch of tako meshi mentioned above, but one of my bottles (the one with more stock in it) cracked in the freezer, so I threw it out.

(Satoshi actually thought we could salvage the stock, but I didn't want to take any chances.)

So instead of making more stock, I just used the amount of stock that was okay and added some water. Also, I didn't add the sugar, just shoyu and mirin.

Whittling the gobo was a good method too, the gobo came out tender.

Despite the cracked bottle of stock, the tako meshi with gobo was delicious.

rainy season

Apparently today, our area will enter the rainy season and according to the weather guy, the next week will be rainy...blah!

The rainy season in Japan is kinda depressing (to me), it is humid, it rains, you think the weather will cool off because it rains, but then it is humid again. In fact, the rain is warm...ew! (See? depressing right?)

Growing up in Hawaii, it gets humid, it rains and then there are tradewinds which come back and all is well. So this humid-rain-humid combo is something that doesn't make any sense to me, even after living in Japan for as long as we have.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings...The other weekend the weather was so beautiful and sunny that we went to check out Suigetsu Park.

We bought some sandwiches from Ferdinand and some cold drinks (coffee and tea) from 7-eleven and walked to the park.

There were several benches under the weeping willow trees, so we took one and had our lunch.

The shobu (iris) was in bloom and the ajisai (hydrangea) too. Some of the ajisai buds looked like candy.

I hope the rainy season will end quickly, though the weather guys aren't so sure about that.

Hope you have a good week.

gazpacho

The weather last Friday was so hot that I wanted something that didn't involve standing by the stove, maybe even something "cool" for dinner.

I had a lot of veggies in my refridge and decided to try my hand at something new...gazpacho.

My food processor is teeny, I think it can hold like maybe a cup or less! So, I did this in portions.

First the green...half an onion, some celery leaves, a whole cucumber, some wilted cilantro, a tablespoon of vinegar, salt, pepper, a little water and some olive oil.

The red...roasted red bell pepper (half), roasted garlic (a nub), a whole carrot and a half can of chopped tomato, a tablespoon of vinegar, salt, pepper, couple dashes of cayenne and some olive oil.

I also had some leftover watercress, so I made a "drizzle" (a.k.a. blob) with watercress, olive oil and some water.

With the other half can of chopped tomato, I just mixed it in with "the red" mixture, without blending.

I have been looking around for an immersion blender, and have my eye on one. Hope to get it before soup season comes around. This was hard to get the texture that I wanted. The "green" was a bit too chunky.

To finish the soup, I sprinkled about a tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese.

NOTES: Even if the texture was "thick", I liked this, a great way to get in a LOT of veggies and keep cool. After making this, I thought that it may not fly with Satoshi because he likes his soup "hot" (even on the hottest day), but he thought it was good and was curious as to what I put in it, trying to guess the different vegetables.

I'm making this again (with my new immersion blender, for sure).

p.s. I'm sending this to Deb's Souper Sundays, always a great virtual gathering with soups, sammies and salads.

ukeian

Another item we found in Kanazawa were sweets made from the eggs of the ukkokei (silkie bantam).

This chicken's feathers are supposed to feel silky which is why they are named such and its eggs are supposedly the top rank in Japan.

The egg yolks are so rich and dense that you can pick them up whole with chopsticks!

We got the slice of castella (sponge cake) 242 yen (about US$2.42) each.

This was rich, not too sweet...mmm!

And the custard pudding...420 yen (about US$4.20) each.

Again, rich and delicious.

I can see why the eggs and chicken are prized in Japan.

Ukeian
JR Kanazawa Omiyage Annex

p.s. this ends my posts on Ishikawa prefecture, back to the kitchen I go! Have a nice weekend!

utsuwa chazuke

There was something neat that we found in Kanazawa...utsuwa chazuke.

Utsuwa means bowl/dish and chazuke is cooked rice with green tea poured over it.

Inside of this wafer "dish", the texture of the wafer is similar to an ice cream cone, are condiments like konbu (seaweed), bonito flakes, jakko (whitebait).

After removing the "dish" from the package, break it in half and put on top of your hot rice.

Pour over some brewed green tea or hoji cha (roasted green tea) and enjoy! (I used green tea)

We bought 2 types katsuo (bonito)/konbu (seaweed) and jakko (whitebait)/shiitake (a type of mushroom)...210 yen (about US$2.10) each. One "dish" is actually one serving.

We shared both over two breakfasts and loved the flavors. (This would definitely be nice during winter.)

After looking on the internet for information on this shop, I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have a counter at Hankyu Umeda. I hope to pick up more.

Tsukuda no Tsukudani
JR Kanazawa Omiyage Annex