Yakult For Me!

Yakult is a pro-biotic drink from Japan with a strain of good bacteria; the Lactobacillus. Drinking Yakult stops the growth of harmful bacteria, protects us from infection, helps digestion and absorption of food, produces vitamins and stimulates the immune system.

In Japan, Yakult is acknowledged by the Japanese Ministry of Health as a "Food for Specified Health Usages" with approved health claim "The Lactobacillus casei Shirota strain reaches the intestines alive, so this product maintains good health by increasing beneficial bacteria, decreasing harmful bacteria and improving the intestinal environment".

How do you get your daily dose of Yakult?

From the supermarket? Fixed price at RM3.99 (price increased already. Used to be RM3.89) at our local supermarket. 10 sen increase because I guess for a pack of 5 bottles of Yakult, they need 1/2 a kilo of sugar. Hmph!

From the vending machine?

Or from the friendly seller in your neighbourhood like this one we found in Osaka? Even big, tough boys drink Yakult.

One for you? XD

Brainwashing The Family

Well, if your family just happen to not share the same interest and enthusiasm as you do about something; what do you do?

Zaini had earlier told me that there'd be absolutely no chance for me to drag him for a trip to Korea and Raimie shared the same sentiment too. Can't blame them though, because in the past when I think of South Korea, I thought of a mall collapsing and of numerous demonstration and not much else. All that changed for me once I got hooked watching KBS World and the myriad of programmes it offers.

Because I do harbour hope to visit the Country one day with Zaini and Raimie, I'm trying to subtlely  acclimatised  them to things Korean. The easiest ones are Korean TV and food.

I cooked some Korean influenced meal the other day for lunch. I should say it was healthy and yummy.

 

Grilled beef, tofu with stir-fried kimchi and asparagus, lettuce, kimchi and gochujang dip

  

My version of beef lettuce wrap. Raimie enjoyed this dish so much and to think it's pretty easy to prepare.

You should know that one of my favourite Korean variety show is Happy Sunday's 1Night 2Days and some things shown in the show kind of rubbed off to us. One of the silly ones are playing kawi-bai-bo (rock paper scissors) complete with finger flick as penalty for losers. I tell you, this game is hilarious.

Here we were, having fun playing silly games and flicking foreheads while waiting for our order during a dinner night outing for Ikan Bakar.

Now, excuse me while I go and obsessively watch 1N2D back epsiodes and laughing myself silly and annoy my family some more. 

Having Lunch And Dinner At Sushi Zanmai

After having a light meal at Sushi Zanmai earlier, I just can't get out the awesomely fatty tuna taste that lingered in my mouth from my mind. What to do? A revisit to the restaurant, that's what! This time, we went during lunch and dinner (yes, two visits on the same day) That's how good the sushi were. If you have budget constraints, better don't go eat sushi there early in your trip or you might end up coming here everyday and blow your budget eating everything!

This time, instead of sitting at the counter watching the chef in action, we sat at a table. Just fill up an order form on which items you want and the quantity and pass it to a waiter. You can always ask the waiter's help if you are unsure about ordering. They were friendly, cheerful and really helpful despite a busy restaurant.

 

The reason we wanted to sit at a table this time was because we were feeling quite conscious about taking photos under the watchful eyes of the chef. Not that they didn't like it because they didn't say anything or look annoyed - more like curious at us, acting like typical tourists.

 

Raimie's lunch - salmon roe maki sushi at 250yen. You get to choose to eat it temaki style too. He had a light lunch because we bought something at McD for him earlier (and gotten Yatterman toys with the Happy Set too).

 

Mom and dad had these. Snow crab at 198yen apiece, fatty tuna at 198yen (normal price 398yen), sardine (I think) - can't remember at 98yen, egg at 98yen and last but not least seared fatty tuna at 198yen (398yen normal price). My mouth and stomach were really happy that day.

 

Then, for dinner we went to the restaurant again. The restaurant's exterior at night. By this time, the waiters recognized us already. LOL

 

 

A dinner feast for us. We ordered seared tuna (198yen), egg (98yen), scallop (198yen), fatty tuna (198yen), salmon (98yen) and a set of chirashi sushi course. Rice topped with fresh prawns, sardines, tuna, squid, eel, eggs, salmon roe, etc and came with a big bowl of miso soup at 1,480yen. It was sooooo yummy.

Itadakimasu!!!

I have to warn you though. After eating good sushi in Japan, you'll probably end up comparing any sushi served back home infavourably. Zaini absolutely refused to go to Sushi King nowadays! :D 

A Song For Valentine's Day

One of my favourite "mushy" song for the Valentine's Day. Enjoy! We'll be heading to Equatorial Hotel for a 2 nights' stay in a few hours. Rest and relax. Mmmmm...

p.s. and a Happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate.

Sushi Zanmai For A Snack

There are plenty of sushi restaurants in Asakusa (what do you expect kan? This is after all, Japan. XD) but contrary to what people think - that we eat sushi and more sushi everyday when in Japan; we've only been to a sushi restaurant a few times there. Just read about our previous food adventure.

Not all sushi are created equal and not all sushi place the same. We found good value at Sushi Zanmai. Traditional in style with no surprises and definitely fresh sushis here.Sushi Zanmai has 29 locations in Tokyo so no problem finding an outlet for your sushi gastronimic experience. Check out the Sushi Zanmai link for more info about other outlets.

The exterior of the restaurant. The sushi selection available are prominently displayed so we can roughly calculate how much damage our meal there would be before entering. There was a promotion of tuna sushi being offered at half price, so of course we wanted to try the tuna!

On our first visit, we sat at the counter. Ordering from the here was easy because we had direct interaction with the sushi chefs. Just point at whatever picture of sushi you desire (complete colour menu available-no English though) and they'll make it for you. If you are sitting at the table, just fill up the order form and pass to the passing waiters.

Sushi chef in action. They talk, they banter and they take orders too. A laid-back atmosphere at the restaurant. The chefs and one of the waiters are family (if not siblings) I think, because of the similarity of their facial features. Well, I didn't ask although I wanted to.

 

On our first visit, we went there for a snack so we didn't order much.

 

I had a uni (sea urchin), otoro (fatty) tuna and (ika) squid. The fatty tuna normally cost 398yen but there was a half priced promotion for tuna going on so it was only 198yen. Uni was 398yen per piece and ika was 98yen. No fishy taste or fishy smell. Just absolute heaven, the tuna literally melt in my mouth leaving a "buttery" (for lack of word) aftertaste. Yummy! I was already craving for more the moment we stepped out of the restaurant.

Zaini had a piece of huge unagi (eel) at 400yen per piece. Soft and flavourful.

Like most restaurants in Japan and unlike most Japanese restaurant in Malaysia, ocha (tea) or mizu (water) are free.

A Trip To The Record Store And A Cardboard Box

After our trip to Kawasaki and Raimie meeting up with Ultraman Mebius and Zoffy, we head back to Tokyo. With the few days left in Japan allocated for shopping, we went to Shibuya for the second time of this trip.

I had an important mission that day, that was to secure a few CDs for a special blogging friend. Zaini needed to buy a big box (I mean, really really big one) to put our shopping in and wanted to look for them at Tokyu Hands. We actually found a box that meets our requirement at a shop in Kappabashi but as luck would have it, the shop was closed the day we wanted to make the purchase. With the vacation almost ending, a safe bet to find one was at Tokyu Hands and the easiest for us to reach to was the one in Shibuya taking one train at Tawaramachi station to Shibuya station on the Ginza line.

A busy intersection in Shibuya

 

The boys listening to some songs. We tried looking for some CDs at the smaller record shop in Asakusa but couldn't find them. Fortunately they were available at HMV and bigger stores in Shibuya.

 

Looking at some Ultraman DVDs. Unfortunately, we didn't buy any because if we did, we can't understand the story much. No subtitles! XD

We also had fun waching Yatterman movie trailer while in the stores. 

 

And getting a couple of CDs

We were in Shibuya for just a couple of hours. We went back our hotel room after we purchased our big box. A huge cardboard box for just 570yen sure beats having to buy another set of luggage that cost a few thousand yen.

Zaini lugging our newly purchased box to the train platform. Tokyu Hands staff wrapped our box so nicely instead of just slapping a "PAID" sticker on the box that it looked like a present instead of just a wrapped package. One reason we love Japan so much. Excellent customer service, even if your purchase is less than 1,000yen.

We always buy boxes for our excess items that can't be fit into our existing set of luggages. That way we don't bring extra bags into Japan or have extra bags to think about while vacationing. Japan Post (JP) boxes are particularly sturdy. We still keep the boxes to put stuff in it!

In 2008, we got ourselves three JP boxes to bring back with our stuff and one of the boxes contained only Ultraman merchandise for Raimie!

It was after lunch when we head back to Asakusa. For lunch, we had sushi at Sushi Zanmai in Asakusa. I had a snack there a few days earlier, and the taste of melt-in-my mouth tuna lingered and I've been wanting to return for more sushi feast. That post, soon.

An Oden Adventure In The Back Alleys Of Asakusa

Planning our trip, we had in our must-do list, a visit to a famous oden place in Asakusa, Otafuku which was nearby to the Toyoko Inn hotel we were staying in. But as luck would have it, the few times we went there, the place was closed or closing!

After a couple of unsuccessful tries, we kinda gave up. Zaini and I decided to just walk around the area, and went into a shop that didn't look too intimidating (i.e. no crowd) for a taste of oden.

The sign that read "ODEN" and something else that I can't read. :p

Although this shop was nearby Nakamise-dori; a tourist trap, no English was spoken at all here and no English menu either. We were greeted by a rather gruff lady proprietor who told us there's no rice in the shop. After assuring her that we were actually wanted to try the oden, we were waved off to a seat.

 

 

 

 

Upon seated and suitably refreshed with a hot towel, we were served soft boiled eggs. Choosing from the selection of items simmering inside the broth, we went for chikuwa, daikon, tofu and vegetable balls.The oden pieces served were huge! None of them puny oden pieces sold at konbini here.

Instead of a glass of beer or some sake, we only asked for mizu (water) which I think made the lady owner a bit grumpy. Where's the profit in serving a glass of tap water, right? LOL

The lady proprietor left us alone most of the time except for the time when we called her to order more items. But she chit-chatted a bit with me when she presented us with our bill. She thought that we were Chinese or from China (yes, this was common for us in Japan. We were always thought to be Chinese), but when I told her that we were from Malaysia, she was really interested to know whether Malaysian loves to eat oden. Well, I wouldn't say all Malaysians loves oden but we certainly do!

I've tried making oden at home, but I guess I still have a lot to learn. It doesn't taste anything like the ones we had either in Asakusa or the ones we had at Japanese restaurants in Malaysia!