Posts Tagged Japan
Breakfast for champions
When I don’t sleep enough, breakfast taste like nausea. My standard is cereal (usually Uncle Toby’s Quick Oats) with soy milk, yogurt (I like Gippsland). If I am more industrious I add frozen berries and some muscovado sugar. Of course there is also a flat white with a pretty pattern on top. I wish someone made me something warm and savory like this:
7 am, Utorohigashi, Hokkaido, Japan. Salmon roe on rice
7:30 am, Daisetsu-zan YHA, Hokkaido, Japan. Salted fish, scrambled eggs, rice.
Maybe that’s going a little over the top. But the salted fish breakfast came from a YHA (a super clean and nice YHA). in japan I have not come across a accommodation serving breakfast that did not include some sort of fish. It is usually lightly salted salmon or a small fish that is related to the mackerel (does anyone know the name?). Pickles that taste fresh and only lightly acidic or salted are a fantastic way to eat vegetables.
Maybe I should just sleep earlier.
Salmon roe, raw scallops and sea urchin
Why does it always rain?
I am in my 3rd week of holidays (2 left) and have returned from Hokkaido. Right now it’s Kaoshiung, Taiwan, with all the tropical heat one can imagine. Thunderstorms have been forming every afternoon in Kaoshiung this week. On the news there was a video of a small tornado. Yesterday I was at a sushi train restaurant (everything equivalent to 60 cents, including Sapporo draught) and the rain fell so hard water flooded the floors. I suspect little sailboats were needed to replace the train.
Rain fell on most days in Japan to my camera’s annoyance. Seafood and ramen was clearly not affected.
Rain fell hard on my drive to Coonawarra last year. Rain fell still on my drive to Yarra Valley this year.
When it rains, you need what I am holding below. The back of the shop opens to the a fish market in Otaru. There IS a huge difference between very fresh and ‘ok’ seafood. More posts to follow!
Salmon roe, raw scallops and sea urchin on rice - less than $10 AUD
I’ll leave a nice arrangement of fireworks here.
Lake Toya
Ramen.
Posted by tzuyen in Restaurant, Travel, ramen on February 18, 2009
Japan. What was beyond these curtains was a shock to what I know about a bowel of noodles. This was one of the busier shops on the ramen street section of a large shopping mall. We joined the queue and waited to buy tickets/vouchers for our bowel of ramen from the vending machine just outside the shop (on the right side of the shop. The tickets werecollected by the waitress outside who then planned the seating arrangements and also gave the chefs a head start to prepare the meal – very fast. When we walked in, the place was crammed with people concentrating on eating in all the availible space. The kitchen was open to view like a sushi bar. An array of large pots were boiling at the back. The waitress said something to the 2 chefs and the chefs immediately looked up and greeted us. They did this for every group of customers entering and leaving the door, generating energy and intense passion in what they do.
2 minute later , a bowel ramen with incomprehensible quality arrived. The best complete, one-bowel mean I have ever exerienced. This is my last supper. The soup was just not possible. Flavour, bones and more flavour. Small bits of solid fat floated on the soup. The ramen was perfect and thin. Meat and scallions was there for good measure. I have to go back again. on my short trip to Japan, I tried around 6 different Ramen restaurants only but I have opened up my heart. I am a believer. This is it. Ramen.