Foods of Japan

During our holiday to Malaysia and Japan 4 months ago, we took about 400 photos all up. About 100 of them were of the food we had while in Japan. It shows how seriously we (or rather I) took our food!!

Below are some of the more memorable meals we had while in Japan not previously covered at length in other posts:

Potato croquette at Takayama - crispy on the outside, soft and hot in the inside. Delicious!! So good we went for another round.


Eating yuba (beancurd sheet) at Nikko. This yuba was both delicate and sweet tasting. I could see the folds in the beancurd sheet, and it is presented in a nice twirl with a dollop of wasabi on top, and a sprig of mountain vege. It was simple, yet delicious.


Natto sushi. Gaz decided to have a taste so both of us had one. I nearly vomitted. Some people just love the stuff, but it's an acquired taste. We saw a telly program in Japan where the tv crew went to schools and cooked natto in various ways for the children. We were amazed to see the children walloped the whole bucketfuls of natto in no time.


Tuna, salmon sashimi and salmon roe on rice. This meal was memorable because we were both very cranky after a full day of walking in the cold and we couldn't find anything we wanted to eat - too expensive, not inspiring. The shop serving this was tiny and smelt strongly of bleach. I really didn't want to eat in that place but we had nowhere else to go. But the food came, it looked brilliant and tasted good.


Crab pilaf - memorable because it was a meal at the Tokyo Museum eaten with a beautiful view of cherry blossoms from our seat. I just loved the sauce which was nicely rich with crab meat. The price was reasonable too.


I just love eggs - this omelette rice meal was at Isetan at a place called Molette. The omelette was PERFECTly done, it covers some fried rice on the plate and topped with bacon, thickened dashi broth and seaweed and spring onions.

Hamburger meal - but with rice and hard boiled egg. Gaz liked this meal very much because it reminded him of hamburger patties his dad used to make. It's wonderful to think that no matter how different people may be, we find similarities in food we love.

Friends

We all need friends in our lives... and I've been very blessed recently because many upon hearing what I needed offered their help. Thank you all!

Winter

It's been really miserable weather these couple of weeks. Winter is really hitting hard this year because I don't recall the weather being so cold so early on. It has been raining almost everyday and it is cold as. My plants are slowly dying off in the frost... no more strawberries, no more tomatoes and after the snails finished off the chilli plants two weeks ago I've given up hope.

I suppose then that this is the best time for my fridge to conk out. And that is precisely what it has done during the long weekend.

On Sunday as is my usual routine, I go grocery shopping during the day, then to my Chinese class. I come back around 5:30pm and start cooking dishes to last us till Armageddon. I spend about 4- 5 hours prepping, cooking, washing every Sunday just so Gaz and I have enough lunches and dinners for most of the week. I start cooking when Merlin comes on the telly, and finishes my washing when House has finished his diagnosis, that is how precise my timing has become.

This Sunday though... when I finally open the freezer door to freeze my cooked meals, I discover to my horror that everything in the freezer is thawed! The fridge must have stopped working during the night before... We've now reverted to putting out our food outside the house (wrapped in plastic) to cool. The weather forecast for tonight is 4 deg overnight. That's even colder than our fridge, just perfect...

Fountains, Box Hill TAFE

It has been some time since we visited Fountains at Box Hill TAFE so we decided to pay it a visit. Because the whole show is run by students training to make it big in the hospitality industry, the prices are reasonable ($26 for 3 course meal, including amuse bouche, fancy coffee/tea and sweets on the side). That means places run out FAST.

Gaz called up wanting to book a place but they were full till July. Luckily they took pity on him and gave us a table last Thursday.

Our amuse bouche - tuna tartare with a pastry top. Needs a little seasoning, some parts of my tuna were a bit chewy. But hey it's free.


Gaz had a selection platter of 4 entrees - cauliflower soup in the cup, pan fried soy and honey quail, a vegetarian springroll with a very nicely balance dipping sauce of nam pla, garlic, lemon and also seared scallops on top of blood pudding. All of it were delicious.


My entree - seared scallops on blood sausage. I loved the blood sausage, just don't remind me what's in it!
My main - duck legs on lentils. The duck was just a tad overcooked, but the lentils was cooked very nicely.
Gaz's main of porterhouse steak and fat chips. Boy, the chips were FAT, but very crispy.
Gaz's dessert of a deconstructed apple pie. Deconstructed stuff is the in thing at the moment, I think. This one has stewed apples sandwiched between two pastry circles with cream on the side. I just love the mint on the top of the pile. So refreshing.

My entree of Sicilian doughnut and ice cream. The dough I'm sure was meant to be airy in the inside of the doughnut, but it turned out a bit doughy, probably not cooked very well. I don't like desserts anyway so Gaz polished all of mine and his. He said it's so that the students won't feel bad their food returned to the kitchen half eaten.


No pictures of the fabulous latte and chocolate truffles we had with them. At this point we were so stuffed they had to roll us out the door. For $26 a pop, I think we had a pretty good value meal! One thing though, the students should have taken a little bit more risk with their food... give the diners something interesting... more interesting than a deconstructed apple pie... next time perhaps.