A Break From Japanese Food

It was a visit to Huis Ten Bosch. A trip just for One Piece, as a birthday present for Raimie last year. We took a break from eating Japanese food and had fast food instead. Birthday boy was happy.

No meat. No chicken for us. Just fish. Fish burger was the meal of the day for us!

A lot of fellow Malaysians would keel over eating burgers in Japan because they won't get chilli sauce with the burgers. What???!!!! No free chilli sauce?! Horror! Who eats burgers without chilli sauce???!!! LOL

Raimie does. We do too!

Actually, our love affair with chilli sauce and pouring them on top of any kind of food is a pet peeve of mine. We eat pizza with chilli sauce. There are people asking for them when eating spaghetti bolognaise (like, you need it with that? Seriously?). Huge dollops needed when eating fried chicken or burgers. Or fried mee. Why of why? For me personally, chilli sauce masks the real taste of the food served. But hey! That's just me.

Breakfasts For Champions

When we were in Japane last year, the business hotel chain that we always stayed at was in the midst of revamping their breakfast menu so they had this really nice breakfast selection and guests are encouraged to give comments and ratings.

Whatever selection was available, my breakfast tray will always have bread and minimal amount of rice. But I usually put a huge dollop of the side dishes... and coffee. Cannot function without morning coffee, me.

Raimie and his Dad will always have tons of pickles. I call them the umeboshi gang.

Can you guess which one would be mine? No bread this time...

Some of the more generous selection. This was at Takamatsu's Toyoko-Inn if I am not wrong. I may be wrong but I observed that Toyoko-Inn that don't really have much foreign tourists there (as opposed to those in Ikebukuro, Asakusa, Hakata, Osaka) have much more generous breakfast selection. My absolute favourite was the breakfast we had in Akita.

Simple breakfast on the road errr... on the track. Had this on the shinkansen when we were traveling from Tokyo to Hakodate.

Once, it was just this. Bread and a tub of margarine.

The last couple of days we were in Japan, my breakfast was limited to this. After a week, no more cold rice for me! The boys however, still enjoyed their rice.

Time For Sanuki Udon

Need something filling, served quickly and somewhat cheap? Why look for burgers and the like when one vacations in Japan. Eat udon instead!

Well, if you are in Takamatsu and you are hungry, what would you look for? Something yummy, chewy and absolutely delicious. You must absolutely not miss trying Sanuki udon.

Legend has it that a monk named Kukai learned the art of making udon at the temple in China where he studied and brought back the knowledge to his home in Sanuki way back in the ninth century.

Three centuries later, another monk named Enni returned from China with drawings of a hydraulic flour mill and with that knowledge, made by kneading flour (noodles, dumplings, etc) flourished.

Sanuki udon, the pride of Kagawa prefecture (which was called Sanuki in ancient times) has a soft and silky texture with an al-dente firmness.The texture of the udon can't be matched elsewhere. Really.

When we got to Takamatsu, we were pretty stoked at the chance to be able to enjoy sanuki udon. More than once, hopefully. Anyways after passing through a few udon shops in Takamatsu, we decided to try a chain outlet first and if time permits, be more adventurous and head to a more traditional, mom&pop style sanuki udon shop later.

So, off we went to Hanamaru for our first sanuki udon experience. Remember, this was our first experience at eating sanuki udon though we have been advised by bloggers, Su and Lrong on how to order them.

Shop's entrance. Not as intimidating as the other shops along the shopping area for clueless foreigners like us to enter. The cook showed us a picture menu, to choose from. So it was, take a tray, pick a glass of water, order your choice of udon (type and size), proceed to pick anything else you want to add to the meal and pay at the cashier.

All three of us had the same. Raimie had the single portion and both Zaini and I had double portion (or was it S size and L size). Can't remember.

I should say we did justice to the food! Not a single drop left!

A few other udon shops just a few metres from Hanamaru. I had hoped we can try them out, but as it turned out we cut short our Shikoku trip in favour of making our way to Hakodate. You aren't seeing the last of me yet, Shikoku! I'll come back!

This place looks pretty interesting to me.Wanted to eat here, but chicken out at the last minute and decided to go to Hanamaru instead. The reason was, the place was busy with people. We were looking for a quiet, non-crowded place as we probably would make a nuisance of ourselves with our cluelessness at busy shops. He~

Mind you, we had our lunch at 4pm!

Balls Of Rice

I’ve written a post on meal to go and mentioned about onigiri there so this is just a rehash of the previous post(s) for the benefit of current readers. ^^

Onigiri is rice ball. In Malay we’d call it “Nasi Kepal”. How did I learn about the word “Nasi Kepal”? By watching a Malay-dubbed Japanese drama called “Oshin” when I was in primary school. I bet most Malaysians old enough to enjoy long-winded drama series watched Oshin when it was shown on Malaysian TV way back in the 1980s. Whole families would sit around their TVs to watch the episodes together. After Oshin, we were equally transfixed to a Philippine’s serial called “Angelito”. A decade later, it would be Korean drama “Winter Sonata” that got the attention of Malaysian viewers. But I digress. Heh heh

Onigiri is cooked rice (wouldn’t want to eat uncooked rice, would we? But I did.) formed into either a triangular or round shape, wrapped in seaweed and eaten with the hands. Onigiri is documented to be in the diet in ancient times and that they had already been enjoyed by the Japanese people since the middle of the Yayoi era (10th century B.C.- 3rd century A.D.). Eating laver (seaweed) became popular in the 17th century and with that, the beginnings of the onigiri we know today.

Onigiri can be found in all convenience stores and onigiri with special delicious fillings are sold at department stores or specialty shops.

Raimie particularly loves this fried shrimp onigiri. He didn't look happy in this photo simply because he wasn't ready for Mommy's camera yet. ^^

RM2.50 per piece onigiri can be bought at AEON here. Or if you want to try the Korean version; try the trimbap (triangular kimbap). The ones sold at the same AEON in Mid Valley look very, very triangle. Very sharp angles. hihihi

There are many different types of fillings to choose from, ranging from simply pickled Japanese plums to grilled salmon, cod roe, and katsuo-bushi (dried bonito) with soy sauce are the most popular fillings but, recently, new western-influenced fillings such as "tuna and mayonnaise" have become popular. How about Spam-filled onigiri (or known otherwise as Spam musubi)?

Other types of onigiri can be made of rice mixed with pickles, such as takana or yukari instead of plain rice, or made with local specialties such as "onigiri grilled with butter" in Hokkaido and "tenmusu" (shrimp tempura wrapped in rice) in Aichi Prefecture.

Raimie’s Mommy version of onigiri? The fast and almost instant version : Mix rice with furikake or sprinkle it later after you’ve shaped your rice balls. For the filling: cook some canned sardines, mix with mayonnaise (think sardines sandwich) and plonk the filling in the middle of your rice ball. Hold the ball in your palm (this sounds naughty) to shape it or use a mould for the shape. I have a variety of moulds in different shapes & sizes. ^^

Pull out a nori (laver/dried seaweed) and eat it with the rice balls.

Raimie’s Mommy made this for the two boys to eat while waiting for Mommy to finish her night race. ^^ It’s great picnic food.

First Meals

I just realised that I haven't started any post on what we ate while vacationing in Japan last year.  How remiss of me! About time to start posting food photos, in between travel stories. No?

First meal, upon arriving to Japan. A late supper bought at a konbini. The melon pan was for Raimie. Plus a cheap 105yen 1ltr pack grape (I think) drink.

First breakfast in Japan - we would eat this type of breakfast often as this is what is being offered/served at Toyoko Inn, the hotel chain that we like to stay at (or is it in?) Though I have to admit, I can only last a week eating onigiris before I start wanting only bread for my breakfast! Thankfully, they offer those too.

It's easy to spot a foreigner at the breakfast hall at this hotel. By foreigner I mean Asian tourists and not Westerners. Due to the limited space, Japanese guests don't usually linger at the breakfast table and eat just enough - 3 onigiris, some side dishes and a cup of tea and they usually don't make a second trip to the buffet table. Us foreigners sit around, hog the breakfast table and eat to last us until dinner! I kid you not! "It's free so might as well scarf everything and get value for money for it" mentality should totally be left behind back home, lah...

Zaini and I, who are foreign tourists ourselves would scoff at these people and mutter "sheesh, these foreign tourists. Why can't they learn to be like the Japanese". A case of  being a Japanese-wannabe? Visited Japan way too many times?

First lunch in Japan was at Shin-Yokohama Station. Nothing too adventurous; we went to Tenya and ate tempura, ate rice, ate some udon too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know there's proper name for those but I'm lazy to put it down.

These, our first ekiben. Eaten on our journey from Shin-Yokohama to Hakata Station, taking the shinkansen. Guess which one is Raimie's?

Craving For Autumn Fruits

Mmmmm... being able to get our hands on these juicy fruits would be so, so lovely.

Sweet, fleshy Kaki or persimmon. It is interestingly called (to me,at least) pisang kaki in Malay. Pisang is Malay for banana, by the way.

 Budo or grapes. Sweet smelling and sweet tasting grapes. I sure miss these most.

 Crunchy, juicy Nashi or pears.

Sweet and crisp Ringo or apples.

 Wouldn't say no to a juicy Mikan or mandarin orange either.

Some of the fruits may no longer be in season when we arrive to Japan. I wonder what fruits can I indulge there? *^-^*

Almost There! Adjusting The Palate?

We seem to be enjoying Japanese food more often lately here in KL now that the trip to Japan is just two months away. Didn't seem to care about going to any Japanese restaurants after our vacation last year and now; here we are eating Japanese food every week!

I guess it's a way of our tummy anticipating the upcoming trip!

It was Sushi Zen at Gardens Mall one week. The boy of ours craved for some sushi. I had their tempura set which was the set of the day/week/month. Can't remember which. Zaini had ebidon, I think.

Then, it was dinner for two at Kampachi Restaurant over at Equatorial Bangi-Putrajaya on Zaini's birthday. We went completely unadventurous and ordered the teshoku (set meal). Kaki tama don (oyster & egg) for me and grilled cod fish for hubby.

We can't enjoy Japanese food and let our Son miss the treat too, so we took him for lunch at Miyagi Restaurant in Bandar Baru Bangi. Generous portion. Nice ambiance. I told Zaini it was like entering a Mom and Pop eatery somewhere not frequented by tourists in Japan. It even had the smell of a joint like some small eating place in the back alley of Asakusa! Heh!

 

Sushi & udon set for Raimie, Yakiniku set for Zaini and I had teppan beef set. Burp!

Will we be eating more Japanese food in the coming weeks I wonder?