kameido & kinshicho

Tokyo People: look at his large lens!

Yesterday got out early to check out the wisteria at Kameido Tenjinsha.

The news had mentioned that the wisteria was in full bloom.

It was beautiful.

Be careful: large scary bees buzzing around

Afterwards was planning to walk to Asakusabashi, but it was too blazing.

Instead I walked through Olinas Mall and Kinshi Park,

Then I caught the train home from JR Kinshicho Station.

Please look here for a few more photos and videos.

rice coupons

With the pandemic taking its toll on the economy, Tokyo prefecture recently sent us this in the mail to receive different food items to help households out.

Nine different choices, mostly rice plus something else.

I really wanted to try the rice + veggie choice but the veggies would be scheduled to arrive during the summer, and I am thinking about going to Hawaii then, so...we chose the all rice because it technically won't go bad.

So between April and June two 5 kilo bags of rice would arrive and then between July and September three 5 kilo bags of rice would arrive.

The thing is they don't tell you when it will arrive.

This past Thursday, our first portion arrived.

Luckily Satoshi was at home to take it off the delivery guy's hands.

All bags are labeled “not for resale”

This is probably use of tax payer's monies but we are still thankful for the gesture.

shawarma-ish smash burger

Have been craving a burger for awhile now

And then I went down a scrolling rabbit hole on IG and stumbled upon lazy smashburger wraps

Which made me want to make one

But first I needed shawarma flatbread

So I tried a recipe that I found online

When I converted it to make 1 serving, the converter on the site didn’t cut back the amount of oil, I should’ve paid more attention to the measurements but didn’t realize it, so I ended up with too much oil in my dough..ick

So I threw it out though I probably should’ve added more flour instead of wasting all the ingredients, but at this point I was kinda getting hangry.

I started over and mixed all the ingredients for the shawarma flatbread, it was kind of dry and not too pliable and without letting it sit like the recipe directs, I cooked it in a frying pan 

Then made my smashburger similar to what I saw online

After it was cooked I added some hummus and veggies.

I should’ve smashed my burger thinner but overall it was good and tasty despite all the obstacles and not being able to "wrap" it.

Dunno if I'll make this again, but if I do, I’ll look for tortillas or buy naan from the curry shop nearby 

aquafaba

Have you ever used aquafaba?

I hadn't.

It is the liquid from cooking beans or canned beans and can be used like egg whites.

Blog friend & pen pal, LJ, wrote a book "Cooking With Scraps" and in it is her recipe for Aquafaba Brownies.

I've been interested in trying the recipe and finally did.

I cut the recipe in half to fit my 50 gram butter rule.

And I also baked this in muffin papers instead of a square pan, because the muffin tin fits nicely on my oven's turntable.

It was pretty easy to put together and you can't taste beans.

It is doesn’t rise too much, is rich and very fudgy

This is a good recipe to use especially with egg prices still being high here, plus I like saying "aquafaba"

If you've used aquafaba before please tell me how you use it.

this and that

Haagen Dazs recently came out with this new series called Spoon Crush...there is a hard dark chocolate top

Berry sauce and macadamia nut ice cream…matches well with dark chocolate

Matcha ice cream with chocolate cookies…I thought it could’ve had more cookie in there 

Love that my favorite market had these on sale (247 yen tax included) because at regular price (359 yen tax included) it is kind of expensive, especially since they’ve cut the amount from 120 ml to 82 ml!

It's definitely starting to feel like ice cream weather here during the day...

The other day at a large intersection, the police and some volunteers were passing these packets out for traffic awareness.

I usually refuse, but this time I took one, and I'm glad I did, they had alcohol wipes, a packet of bath salts

AND this reflector thingy...not sure how to use it, but think you might be able to slide it onto your bag or clothes.

The government recently started asking people to wear helmets whenever they ride bicycles.

The word they use in Japanese is a super oxymoron, doryoku (make an effort) gimu (mandatory)

If you don't wear one you won't be fined...hopefully more families will wear them, I still often see the children wearing them but not the parent.

Made a batch of sweet sour spareribs, this one came out the best in my opinion, not lots of sauce leftover and loved the spareribs when they are kind of cartilage-y.

MOS came out with a plant based soy "fish" sandwich.

There is no fish at all in it, and it seems to be "fish" flavored, because it tasted like fish

They also give you a packet of vegan tartar sauce

It was okay, but it was too small and I was still hungry afterwards

Freesia bloomed! whoo

Way less blooms than last year but a little is better than nothing especially since we thought the plants would die during our building reno

Last year I stumbled on this house's wisteria (photo from last year), it is now an empty lot and the house & wisteria are gone...sad.

Reconnected with this recipe, still easy and delicious.

Wednesday the "dust cloud" from the Gobi desert came flying over, making everything outside all dusty, not to mention the wind was super blustery, almost typhoon like.

I brought the plants indoors because I was afraid they would be blown off the lanai.

Thursday morning, N Korea decided to launch one of the bazillion missles they seem to have and the alert for it went off.

My peeve with this "alert" is that if you aren't watching tv you don't know about it.

AND it is almost always after the fact, like it already landed somewhere. This one gave the people of Hokkaido 2 minutes to take cover...anyway, luckily no one was hurt/killed and the missile apparently landed in the ocean

These crows...the two on the fence are the lookouts, the 3 on the bottom are the grunts...

This was when I was going out for groceries.

When I passed by on my way home, garbage was scattered all over the place and nothing was under the blue net, what a mess they made...

Shared these 2 Krispy Kreme doughnuts with Satoshi, they were the chocolate old fashion and biscoff chocolate.

This is my 3rd time trying Krispy Kreme, meh dry

Hoping you all are doing well.

Have a safe weekend.

whoa (part 2)

I told you about how fascinated I was with this grandpa's parking skills.

Since then, he got a new van.

AND I learned how he doesn't hit the stairs...if you look closely at the photo, you'll see a ball hanging from the steps near his windshield, this is to tell him how close he is to the stairs.

Cool, yeah?!

19356

Sunday, the rain stopped and the sun was out.

We made our way to Kudanshita to buy these noriben from Ichinoya

Not sure how I knew about this place, but have been wanting to try.

This is the basic called Tokyo meibutsu (specialty)...1080 yen (tax included), all sorts of stuff in these bentos and they are particular about where the ingredients come from and note them on the inside cover of the bento box.

There was even half of an ajitama in there too!

The chicken was cooked in a miso sauce, I want to try to recreate this, it was so tasty.

Satoshi got the Sakurazaka...1800 yen (tax included), his came with 2 large ebi fry (fried shrimp), salmon, shirasu (whitebait), which is their special bento for April.

The fish shaped container of shoyu that came with these bento were gold! (fancy)

To prevent waste, they charge for tartar sauce, so we bought one 50 yen (tax included) it was enough to share 

We walked across the street to Yasukuni Shrine and had our bento while sitting on their benches.

These bento were HUGE but so ono!

After lunch, we wandered around Yasukuni Shrine and there were some peonies blooming as well as other flowers 

And since most of the cherry blossoms had fallen, there were not too many people here.

From here we went to check out the Institut Francais, a French language school that was featured in a J-drama for its building.

The school is located on the other side of the Sotobori (outside moat) in the Shinjuku ward

We also wanted to have some coffee, and also smelled the crepes cooking, so even if we were still full from lunch, we also had crepes & galettes...bu bu (oink!)

I ordered this salted caramel & banana crepe...750 yen (tax included)… lots of salted caramel in this, love!

Satoshi had their galette complete...850 yen (tax included)...this had ham, egg & cheese

These crepes/galette are made by Breiz Cafe, who also has a food truck.

The campus is small but beautiful.

I'm glad we got to check this school out.

We decided to walk off our bazillion calories and made it back to the Imperial Palace.

The Eastern Garden was open (it was free), so we went to check it out.

There were lots of azaleas as well as other flowers in bloom, it was beautiful.

It was kind of blazing but still kind of chilly in the shade, it was nice to be outside

Noriben Ichinoya

2-2-6 Kudanminami

Chiyoda, Tokyo

Phone: 03.6261.1147

Hours: 11:00-18:00

if you'd like to see more photos/videos, please look here