happylife

A Vulgar Menu Item?

Ramen is one of the most popular menu items in Japan. It is a noodle in soup which originated from China, but it has been improved a lot to fit Japanese taste. One thing I feel wasted about ramen is that it has too much soup compared with noodles and most people leave the soup half eaten while they eat up the noodle. In my case, a bowl of ramen is not enough, but I can't eat it up including the whole soup. It's too thick and I need something to eat with the left soup. Some ramen restaurants provide a cup of steamed rice so that we can eat it with the left soup. I feel happy when it is provided for free, which sometimes happen in lunch time. In this restaurant I found in Sapporo was a little bit different and it made me happier. As you guess, eating the rice putting into the soup tastes better than eating them separately, however, it is regarded as a very bad manner in Japan. Some one calls it "cat food". Lots of people including me hesitate to do it, but in this restaurant, the "cat food" was on the menu item list -- the vulgar but delicious eating manner was authorized in the restaurant! So I was able to enjoy the special risotto after the noodle without worrying about other people's eyes. 

Whisky

The other day I went to a bar with my friends in a small town in Tokyo. It was a good bar with nice atmosphere and quite a few liquor variations. I ordered Canadian Club Black on the rock. To tell the truth, I can't tell the taste of whisky, but it was very good. I think that the taste of alcohol depends on not only the taste itself but also where, when and with whom we had it. To be able to enjoy a glass of whisky is a happy thing because it never tastes good when we are in a unhappy feeling. It might be a barometer of how happy we are. Though I had been in a distance from alcohol, I'm thinking now that I can come closer to it. But I have to be careful of not being indulged to it because my grandfather was a kind of alcoholic.

Edible or Not?

Food in Okinawa is different from any other Japanese original dishes. It's rather Ethnic and closer to Taiwanese I think. I remember that I often saw this kind of food display in Chinatown in Vancouver. It looks grotesque for me and most of Yamaton-chu (Okinawanese term which means any other Japanese people outside Okinawa), but I don't think they are barbarous or uncivilized. What's the difference from our fish displays or stuffed deers which we are familiar with? Logically I understand that, but I'm not so logical that I can eat this pig's legs or nose. My instinct denies that. I have eaten a stew of giblets and even sliced pig ears, but that is my limit.

A cafe on a hill

When I was cycling around the city, I happened to find this castle-like building on a hill. It is a cafe run by one of the most famous confectioneries in Hokkaido. No one couldn't stop me walk in to the cafe as I am sweet addicted. I got happy as soon as I were there because the cafe was idealistic for me; a spacious floor with a spectacular lake view and I could even see a big flower bed under the window. Of course the menu items were delicious and reasonable priced. I enjoyed a bowl of shaved ice with boiled adzuki beans and match flavor. It was the most delicious shaved ice in my life because it was not actually "ice." In more accurate words, it was made from iced milk with sugar. The cafe is located at the end of my cycling course and it's about a 40 minute ride from my hotel. It's a good reward for me after a moderate exercise. How many times more am I visiting there?

Water business

I'm not talking about a plumber. A restaurant, bar or nightclub business is called "water business" in Japanese. It might be because it is always unstable just like a rain or flood; it is sometimes prosperous but disappears in a short time. The characteristic of this business is it is lucrative as far as it is running. It is a commonsense all around the world that drinking in a bar is costly. Kushiro City has a huge, old style amusement area in its center and fortunately or unfortunately, I am living adjacent to the area. In the last couple of weeks, I had dinner in the area every night. It was not bad for the first few days, but I got tired soon. It was not only costly but also unhealthy. Therefore, I rent a rice cooker from the hotel manager and started cooking for myself. It can't be called cooking because I have no stove and knife in my hotel room, and I'm only steaming rice to eat it with some side dish purchased and heated in a microwave oven in my room. It's too easy, but much better than before. Anyway, this picture depicts the typical, old style, Japanese bars called "Aka Chochin" which means "a red paper lantern." Each bar has a red paper lantern and its capacity is at most ten. It's cosy and interesting as far as you visit once a month, but it's hard to visit every night.

Seven meals a day

Osaka is often called "the city of food." We can enjoy tasty menu items for reasonable prices out there. Of course, there are a lot of good restaurants in Tokyo too, but it is a general rule that the better, the more expensive. I have to admit that there are a lot of bad restaurants in Tokyo too. However, in Osaka, we can easily find a good and reasonable restaurants. I think the average quality of restaurants is way higher than in Tokyo. I have never regretted that I chose a bad restaurant in Osaka. Anyway, this funny pierrot is one of the most popular symbols in Osaka. It is a character doll of a famous and traditional restaurant named "Kuidaore." Unfortunately, the restaurant is reported to be closed in a few days because of business reasons. I visited the restaurant on the last night of my stay in Osaka though it was the seventh meal on the day for me!

Okonomiyaki in the parallel world

To tell the truth, I'm already in Hokkaido which is a cool paradise for me. However, I still have lots of things to write about Osaka. Sure, it was a terribly hot, humid and crowded city, but every other thing looked nice and fresh for me. If Vancouver is another world for me, Osaka is "the parallel world"; it is totally different from Tokyo, but it is still Japan. Differences were everywhere especially in foods. As I mentioned before, I love Okonomiyaki, Japanese pancake including meat, seafood, egg, cabbage and whatever, and Osaka is said to be the mother town of Okonomiyaki. People in Osaka seem to love this cuisine and they eat it even for lunch while we mainly nibble on it while drinking in Tokyo. It is almost main diet for Osaka people and I found this ultimate combination of Okonomiyaki lunch. It was served with boiled rice! It looks very weird for us Tokyo people and I had never seen Okonomiyaki come with boiled rice. After a bit of hesitation, I dared to order this menu item and tried it timidly. It was a good combination and I loved it. I'm now wondering why we Tokyo people don't adopt this combination menu.

A tropical cafe

I spend most of time facing towards PC in my room every day. It is sometimes depressing especially when my work doesn't go well as I expect. Changing the environment around me is one of the best way I know and I sometimes go to cafes where I open my notebook PC to do work with. Different from Vancouver, it is difficult to find a good cafe in Tokyo because the land is limited. I don't like to drink a cup of coffee in a overcrowded cafe with strangers within 30cm. It's impossible to work with PC in such an environment. I was lucky to find a cafe in my neighbors which was almost ideal for me. It is a tropical and open style cafe with about ten tables. Half of them are located on a lawn garden each covered with a gazebo. The menu items are reasonable and my favorite is a glass of mango juice. Unbelievably it is in Tokyo and I can connect to the Internet with the Emobile's wireless service. It is just like a hideaway and there are always few customers. I will never write about the detailed information about the cafe because it is my secret place.

To drink colder

The other day, I had lunch in a Thai restaurant in Tokyo. The menu items were good, but what impressed me more was the other thing; it was rather a hot spring day and an iced tea was served in a metal cup. We usually have something cold with a glass or ceramic cup. I think it's rare to use metal cup. Actually I have no metal cup except for a camping gear. I think it is because a metal cup is not suitable to have hot drinks because it becomes too hot. It is not good either to drink something cold because it easily forms dew on its surface and wet table. However, it is very pleasant to have cold drink with a metal cup on a hot day because the cool metal feeling on your lips will make you feel way cooler than a glass or a ceramic cup. The cup in the Thai restaurant had a saucer to avoid dews and I could fully enjoy the benefit of the metal cup. How about the idea to make a ceramic cup with a metal part? -- Whole part is made of ceramic except the area lips touch so that it has the cool metal feeling with no dews.

Shabu Shabu

It is no more than one century since ordinary Japanese people started eating beef, but we are now enjoying it almost every day. While the standard Western menu items such as beef stake or hamburger are very popular among us, we have developed our original menu items using beef. Sukiyaki is probably the most famous one, but we have some other great variations. Shabu Shabu is one of them. It is considered to be one of the highest class and therefore the most expensive menu items in Japan. Paper thin sliced beef is served on a large dish and we pick up one piece of them with chopsticks and dip it in boiling broth for our selves on a table. "Shabushabu" is the Japanese onomatopoeic word which we hear while dipping and shaking the sliced beef in the broth. As you can see in this picture, the beef has a lot of fat which is well scattered in the lean meat. Different from most Western people, we prefer this marbled beef. Some farmers in Japan massage calves giving them a lot of beer in order to get better marbled beef. If you came to Japan, I recommend that you should try Shabu Shabu instead of Sukiyaki.