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Most people view pancakes as breakfast food, though IHOP and Ron Swanson might disagree. Since moving to Japan, we have eaten many random foods we would have never considered as palatable in the states. I can say, without a doubt, that we have definitely expanded our food horizons (and our definition of edible).
It seems like everywhere you turn in Japan, there are large food advertisements, enticing you and your taste buds to try something new. It’s great, but we still don’t always know what we are eating. Our recent food adventures have taken us to Okonomiyaki お好み焼き, which we have seen defined on many menus as “Japanese Pancake.” I’m not sure I would call it a pancake, although it is kind of flat and in the shape of a circle. Perhaps a thin, circular, grilled casserole would make for a more accurate description.
I’ll be honest….it looks kind of horrible. In fact, it looks kind of disgusting the first time you see it, so we have always avoided these okonomiyaki restaurants. This all changed last fall while we were in Kyoto. I think we were really just tired of walking, but whatever the reason, we stumbled into an okonomiyaki restaurant. What a pleasant surprise! It turns out we picked a good place to start eating okonmiyaki, as it originated in nearby Osaka. Though it is prepared differently in various regions of the country, the notion of the “pancake” remains the same. Basically there is some flour batter and you can add whatever you want to the dish!
We chose mochi, shrimp, and beef, and watched as cabbage and noodles were added as well. Some restaurants allow you make your own on a grill in the middle of the table, but we like paying other people to make our food. In any case we tried a new food that is delicious, and in true Japanese style, we properly drizzled our meal with a copious amount of mayonnaise!
Last night we went for a walk and took some pictures of a few New Year’s decorations in our neighborhood. Enjoy a tiny taste of our town as it celebrates the coming of 2012.
A local shrine decorated.
The fire stations shimekazari 標飾り.
A local restaurant celebrates extravagantly.
Our New Year’s shimekazari!
Last week, one of my students asked me if Shishimai visited us last year. I didn’t know what that was, so he explained it to me. Shishimai is the Japanese Lion dance, where a Red Lion dances to bring good luck in the New Year. And I believe to ward off bad spirits and to bring a blessing to your house. It is an Asian tradition, and varieties of the Lion dance exist in China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. They are pretty different in each country (based on my extensive wikipedia research). In our region of Japan, one person dresses as the Red Lion, but in other countries sometimes it is 2, 3, or 4 people. Last year, we had just moved into our house, but I remembered hearing the Japanese bamboo flute and drums. We were too busy moving in to really investigate further, and figured it was something happening at our local shrine. Apparently, it was Shishimai!
This year, I am excited to say, we were visited by Shishimai! We thought we would not receive the visit, as Jan. 1st came and went. However, on Jan. 2nd our doorbell rang and the Red Lion, along with a group of five or six musicians were at our door. James came running into the bedroom, yelled “Shishimai is here,” and I think I woke up faster than I ever have! I ran down stairs just in time. We tried to come outside, but they motioned us to go back in and then asked if they could come in. Before we knew it we had a red lion dancing in our house to bring in the New Year. AJ was not entertained and was a bit freaked out. It was awesome. Then someone with a mask came in and danced, but I’m not sure what that was. After it was over, we thanked them, and then they invited us outside to take some pictures. When we were outside, the Lion was trying to bite AJ, which I think means good luck. I wish I had been more awake, but it was still a great way to start the year!
Hello Kitty Popcorn machine a video by WanderingHokies on Flickr.
Two of my favorite things about Japan combined: Hello Kitty and awesome vending machines. We came across this amazing vending machine while “hiking” in the nearby mountains. Want a snack after your day hike? Why not try some Hello Kitty popcorn?!
Drum roll please…..we’ve made it to 30 days!! We hope you’ve enjoyed these 30 days of life updates, and we hope that it has encouraged you to think about coming to visit us in Japan! (*HINT*HINT*) I’m not really that subtle…
So let’s finish this 30 day blogging challenge off sweet with adventures in Kit Kat’ing!
Sakura Matcha Green Tea Kit Kat: A spring time cherry blossom specialty (that is actually sold at the airport year-round for tourists) that celebrates a blend of two uniquely Japanese flavors, sakura and matcha. It was very sweet, and mainly tasted like white chocolate, with a flavoring of matcha tea. The sakura flavor is very subtle and more of an aftertaste than full flavor.
Soy Sauce Kit Kat (Syoyu-fumi Tokyo Edition): This Kit Kat tasted very sweet, but not really like soy sauce. I’m not even sure how to describe it actually. Guess you’ll have to come to Japan and try it yourself!
Royal Milk Tea: Calling all European tea drinkers…this Kit Kat is for you! This tasted just like milk with a strong tea aftertaste. Any tea drinker would savor this flavor.
Cafe latte Kit Kat: FABULOUS if this coffee lover must say so myself! This Kit Kat made from Hokkaido milk tasted like strong espresso. Soooo good! And it came with an instant coffee drink.
Hojicha-Roasted Tea Flavor Kit Kat: (Itohkyuemon Hojicha – Kyoto Edition) Hojicha tea is actually a green tea that is roasted to a brown color. It is very bitter in flavor, and leaves your mouth very dry after a cup. I am not a huge fan of the tea, but I actually really enjoyed the Kit Kat. It tasted exactly like a cup of Hojicha tea without the dry mouth that follows. It was interesting how much of the roasted flavor you could taste as well.
Yubari Melon: This Hokkaido Kit Kat is also sold at the airport for tourists like myself. I am happy to say that James bought an entire box. The Yubari Melon is a specialty melon grown in Japan’s northernmost island that sell as gift melons. This Kit Kat is probably the closest I will get to experiencing the taste of the Yubari Melon. It tastes just like cantaloupe chocolate.
While we have greatly come to enjoy green tea since moving to Japan, we realized we didn’t really know anything about it. So in an effort to educate ourselves, we visited a green tea plantation in Shizuoka prefecture, an area that produces 40% of Japan’s green tea. Unfortunately, the tour did not teach us much about green tea, but we did get to pick our own tea leaves!
(If it wasn’t raining, we were supposed to wear these to pick the green tea. But it was raining…)
It was a rainy and yucky day, but despite the weather, the fields of green tea were still beautiful. I didn’t even realize green tea grew on regular looking bushes (that were perfectly crafted into rounded rows, of course). The first leaves of the spring are the most expensive, supposedly providing for the finest of green tea, and we were lucky enough to visit during the first harvest. Apparently, green tea connoisseurs will pay almost $100 a cup to enjoy the first leaves of the season, artfully hand ground into a fine tea. I guess green tea is a bit like fine wine, though I’m not sure I will ever be a connoisseur.
After the factory tour, our guide instructed us on how to properly pick tea leaves. We learned to pick the top four leaves, and the guides spent a significant amount of time explaining this to us. I think there must have been something lost in translation, because he seemed to be doing a lot of talking, and all I got out of it was we were supposed to be picking the top four leaves. Finally we headed outside and began to pick. The rain discouraged us from picking a lot, and I wish we had picked a bit more than we did. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as picking other things, because unlike picking fruit, you weren’t enticed to eat the sweet delicacies as you picked. Although they did encourage us to eat a leaf off of the bush and James did. He said it tasted just like a regular leaf. I believed him and declined the opportunity to eat a green tea leaf right off of the bush.
After ten minutes in the rain, we headed back inside with our little bags of green tea leaves to learn about the process of turning those leaves into green tea. We were given an awesome cup of green tea and a sheet of paper with directions on how to make it at home. That was the extent of our education on green tea making, but we did go home and give it a try.
We bought sushi roll mats, and equipped with our directions, we began steaming the leaves. After a good steaming, we ground/kneaded them in the sushi rolls for a few minutes until they started crumbling. Between each kneading (three total) we put the leaves back on the stove to dry them out. This took about 30 minutes per cup of tea, but I think it was worth it.
Steam, knead, dry, knead, dry, knead, dry….TEA! We burned our first batch, but the second batch turned out great! There is something special about drinking an amazing cup of green tea with the satisfaction of knowing that you picked the leaves and made the tea yourself.
Please look at the picture below. This melon costs ¥5780, or about $75. For one melon! And believe it or not, this is fairly cheap for a gift melon. In Japan, high end fruit is often given to show your appreciation for someone who has done something for you, or for an important guest or client. Most of the ones I have seen in our area cost about $100, but they can go as high as $300 or $400. And for perfect or rare fruits, you are looking at thousands of dollars. In 2008, a pair of melons from Hokkaido broke records when they sold for 2.5 million yen!
Gift melons are perfect in shape, and they are carefully hand tended and cared for throughout the entire growing process. Any fruit that is deemed imperfect doesn’t make the cut. I saw an ad in Tokyo that showed the fruits being grown in greenhouses at the top of skyscrapers. I wish I’d taken a picture of the ad so I could have found more information about these skyscraper fruits. I have never had a gift melon, so I can’t say what they taste like, but I would hope they taste amazing for the price. It should be noted that these are fruits you only buy for others. If you were buying a melon for yourself, you would buy the $10 or $20 one at the regular grocery store. (I know….I still haven’t adjusted to fruit prices here!) I have also heard there are square gift watermelons and black watermelons, but I haven’t seen either of these. Right now is a gift-giving season (I believe) because the stores are suddenly full of expensive gift fruit. I can’t imagine spending this much money on fruit….can you?
Homebrewers across the world search for exotic and odd ingredients to distinguish their beers for both fun and competition. Big breweries tend to shy away from innovations, preferring simple and cheap ingredients to reproduce the same tasting product at different locations for mass consumption. Micro-breweries are in somewhat of a golden age in the US right now, and are making headways in Asia as well. Dogfishead Brewery in Delaware often uses unique ingredients in their brews, but have a knack for balance and a keen understanding of the American palate. Well, in Japan, there is a nationalist attitude insinuating that anything Japanese is genuinely unique and can be used in virtually any situation. Wasabi leaves and green tea leaves are two common cash crops with dozens of uses in Japan. Green Tea is world known for a variety of health improvements, and wasabi is commonly associated with sushi but is found in a host of other products. There is no doubt in the usefulness and greatness of wasabi and green tea… but not a main ingredient in beer. Recently we purchased a few bottles of wasabi and green tea beers from Shizuoka prefecture, which is known to grow both in abundance.
Wasabi beer tastes like you would imagine… a bland base beer that washes down with a wasabi harsh aftertaste and not at all refreshing. Green Tea beer was drinkable, but left your mouth dry like drinking plain unsweetened matcha… again, not a flavor one desires in beer. But the adventure was worth it! Though not all have failed at using these ingredients, Baird Beer, a Japan based microbrewery, joined forces with one of the world’s finest craft breweries in Stone Beer from San Diego, CA to create a Green Tea IPA. So far I have heard of it only available in America, but am on the lookout for it here!
This adorable little squash is what the Japanese call pumpkins. I was a little devastated this fall when all of the pumpkin flavors tasted like squash, and not the yummy pumpkin spice flavor that means fall to me in the states. But, I have since acquired a taste for squash treats.
I have seen frozen fruits filled with ice-cream and sorbet in other restaurants in Japan, but I had never seen a pumpkin before. I was SO excited about the pumpkin I almost didn’t order anything else to eat. A frozen pumpkin filled with pumpkin ice-cream? Impossible to resist! This was by far the highlight of my trip, and I have a hard time remembering anything else we did in comparison to the pumpkin (which included a trip to a gold mine, a boat ride through ocean caverns, and a monkey park). Clearly nothing comparable to a frozen baby pumpkin filled with pumpkin ice-cream.
Tokyo Tower was built in the late 1950s as both a useful communications center and as a national celebration of their rebuilt economy. Today it houses countless TV antennas and over 150 million people have toured it… including Godzilla and Mothra who managed to destroy the steel tower (which is taller than its inspiration in Paris). We visited the home of the Noppon Brothers (TV-MA looking mascots “born” in 1998) last year while on a night out in Tokyo. We saw the tower, which is the second tallest artificial structure in Japan, long before we got near it. Its flood lamps lit the orange paint making the iron structure stick out against the innumerous business and residential buildings that litter the Tokyo landscape.
After purchasing our tickets we had the option to take an elevator up to the main observation deck or go below to an adolescent themed wax museum and other odd attractions. We decided to go to the observation deck. From there we had a unique view of the city, with hundreds of red aviation safety lights blinking on the horizon. Considering the horizon, we realized how insanely huge the metropolis of Tokyo is as from every direction we turned was urban… there was no dark boundary marking the end of the city, at least from the naked eye. We took the elevator to the upper observation deck, but did not stay long as Angela gets motion sickness and the tower swayed in the wind.
The Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011 in fact bent the tip of the Tower, but otherwise the structure remains sound. We enjoyed being tourists but skipped the dinosaur wax museum. Today Tokyo Sky Tree Tower is nearly complete in northern Tokyo, taller than Tokyo Tower and built to house digital TV communications along with restaurants and other commercial ventures. I can only hope that Sky Tree will have a mascot as unique as Noppon!
