Japanese Food

Hit up a couple of interesting coffee shops over the weekend. I was in Shibuya at the Tower Records checking out some of the books, and looking for something in the way of a Mike Tyson biography. Don't know if he or anyone ever wrote about something like that, but just thought it would be an interesting read. Couldn't find anything like that. Seems like Tower Records Shibuya shrunk their English reading material, which is a bummer cause was pretty good size, and could find a lot of stuff to read, but they moved all the books down to the second floor and added a cafe, so the books section in essence shrunk by half. Oh well. So I email my friend who has a thing for cafes around Tokyo about the "new" Tower Records cafe, and she asks if I want to go find Omotesando Koffee. I've heard about this place from various places on the internet, and since I'm more a Frappucino kind of guy I never really went looking for it. To be honest I couldn't tell the difference between a cup of Folgers and a perfectly brewed reverse siphoned, through test tubes and gold mesh, or whatever those contraptions are cup of coffee. But if it's one thing that Japanese are good at, it's going overboard into the realms of perfctionism, so there is no shortage of perfectly Japanese versions of everything in the world. Seriously. So I walk the short fifteen/twenty minutes or so from Shibuya to Omotesando, and meet my friend. She guides us through the backstreets following her trusty smartphone, and we get lost several times, but leave it to technology to put us on the old school coffee joint. This place, Omotesando Koffee (read this timeouttokyo article about it) is trippy. It's a shop, or I should say a kitchen in the living room of a house. Here are tons of pictures from our friend google. I didn't take any cause I knew the internet was littered with tons way better than I could take. I had an Ice Mocha, which I don't know if that's sacrilege to a cup of coffee to drink it with ice, but it was hot yesterday. We walked around a bit more, and then I remembered that there was another coffee shop that was supposed to be like one of "the" coffee shops around Tokyo just around the corner. Tokyo has been going through this coffee phase for I don't know how long, but it seems that within the past couple years or so there has been a move towards authentic hipster coffee, and I keep seeing articles about these coffee shops around. Like I said I'm happy with my strawberry Frappucino, so I've never tried. But my friend was game, so we walked a bit through the neighborhood and came upon Streamer Coffee Company with Omotesando Koffee cups in hand. Junkies. I got a mint mocha. It was good. So another weekend spent exploring the mass that is Tokyo, Japan. Well spent, I say. Omotesando Koffee 4-15-3 Jingumae, Shibuya Omotesando Station 03-5412-9422 Streamers Coffee 3-28-19 Jingumae, Shibuya Harajuku Station 3-5772-6633

Went down to the aquarium the other day and sat in on the tuna feeding. These things are so huge. It's crazy that this aquarium is so big yet only costs seven bucks entry fee. Seriously one of the best deals in Tokyo. You could stay in here for a good three hours then take a walk down by the ocean after you're finished. Kasairinkaikoen (????????station on the JR Keiyo Line Tokyo Sea Life Park

So, this was what I did in May to make green Ume plum juice as I do every year. At this stage, I had stars in my eyes and was 100% sure that everything will be just fine. But now, in the middle of June, I found out that my attempt failed. Because of the unusual hot day(s) at the end of May, my Ume plum juice not only went through fermentation but even got moldy. AHHHHHHHH?Is any useful thing included in the mold? like penicillin?I DON'T THINK SO. Oh, well! :(..

Japan is a goldmine for used goods. The Japanese take such good care of their stuff that it's pretty much brand new when they pass it on. There are stores after stores selling everything from used LV bags to golf clubs. I usually hit up the used clothes shops mainly for fun to see what they have like old school T&C or HIC shirts. There are a lot of shops that specialize in specific things, too, and those shops will charge big bucks for whatever it is that they deal in. This shop Berberjin in Harajuku sells vintage everything. They have a basement full, I mean full, of vintage Levis jeans. It's crazy. Some of it never worn, most of it in good shape. Those things are hundreds of dollars for like fifty year old used jeans. They also sell a lot of vintage tshirts and champion sweaters. They are huge on Champion sweaters over here. Old school Converse Chucks and Nikes. Then there are the hundreds of regular old used clothes shops. They are a step above thrift shops, but kind of the same thing. They carry everything, and once in awhile you can score. I found this Reyn shirt at a shop a couple weeks ago. 700 yen, like 7bucks at the rate now. Some of the bigger used clothing shops are Kinji in Harajuku Chicago all over Tokyo Bingo all over the place Another one worth mentioning is K-Skit in Kichijoji. One of the best places to find sneakers. And it's not only clothes. Used shops for furniture, video games, electronics, appliances, whatever. A lot of times the used stuff cost more than it did new, but that's just because the demand is so high. If you have time, or an afternoon to kill it's worth checking these places out. Lots of interesting things to find.

A little musing on chicken. read more

From the archives: We apparently had the coldest spring on record in this area. It’s finally getting warm again, and today I started my first batch of mugicha this year. Here is a slightly updated article about mugicha, or toasted barley tea, my favorite non-alcoholic summer drink. This was originally published on May 10, 2007, and updated on June 10, 2008. I’ve added another update at the end. When we were growing up, my mother frowned upon most sugary drinks for us kids. So things like sodas were generally not stocked in the house - an ice-filled cup of Coke was a great treat whenever we went out to eat. Things like Calpis, or when we lived in the U.S. Kool-Aid, were strictly rationed. The cool drink we always had in the refrigerator was mugicha, or barley tea. Even when we lived in White Plains, New York, there were always a couple of jugs of mugicha in the large American refrigerator. Mugicha is traditionally made by briefly simmering roasted barley grains. It has a toasty taste, with slight bitter undertones, but much less so than tea made from tea leaves. To me, it’s much more refreshing to drink than plain water. My anti-sugar mother always made sugarless mugicha, but my younger self craved the sweetened mugicha that most of my friends’ mothers seemed to make. I always begged my mother to make sweet mugicha, but she always refused. Some day, when I am the one making mugicha, I’ll put all the sugar I want in it, I used to think. So, when I reached my teen years, and my mother was back working full time, I used to pour rivers of sugar into the mugicha. My little sisters loved it. I’m not sure if it made them more hyper than usual, though I have vague memories of my younger sister sitting on my head when she got bored. Now that I am nominally an adult, I much prefer unsweetened mugicha. I’m growing more like my mother as I get older, a rather scary thought. read more

Parco Urawa is having an exhibition of World Heritage sites built out of legos. At first I thought it was going to be meh, but it was pretty nuts. I don't know who they paid to build those things out of legos, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't pay them enough. Before I came to Japan, I had no idea what a World Hertiage site was, but for some reason Japanese are crazy about these places, and they know just about all of them. They also try and go see these places, which is a bit different from Americans who really don't have an interest in such places. Guess we lack culture or something, or maybe we just have too much stuff to do within America that we barely ever make it outside the country. What? You didn't know that Woody and Buzz were part of the World Heritage sites? It was also a time for lego to try and sell as many of their little bricks as possible, so they had a shop set up. They even had Huge lego bricks put together to make benches throughout the shopping center. I wouldn't mind having a lego chair or bed in my room. Actually, the reason I took these pictures was because as you can see these are crazy pieces of lego art work, and there were tons of kids and adults around checking it out, and the only thing separating us from the legos was that rope thing that they have at movie theaters or the airport. That, and a sign that said don't touch. There wasn't even anyone watching over the legos, they were just scattered throughout the shopping center on tables, and I even I already had thoughts of some "alterations" if you will. This wouldn't last five minutes in any of the malls in Hawaii. Piece of Peace

Man back in the day this was the brand. When I was in high school, cruising was "the thing to do on a Friday night." More like the "only" thing to do on Maui on a Friday night. Haha. From Pay N Save to sevens to taco bell to kaahumanu, and then back to pay n save. In order to cruise you had to have two things, a car and a stereo. There were a few car clubs back then, but if it were Maui I think the "Latins" were the envy of everyone. Neons, Kandy colors, phantom tops, and hydros were the things that we all wished we had. Most of us didn't have the kind of money or . . . well yeah money was what we didn't have. The cheapest thing that we could get was the stereo. It was all about big thumping bass, and the place to get it was from Stan the Man at Kamikaze stereo. I don't know if that was his self-given nickname, or if that's just was others called him, but we were in that shop pretty often, and he was always trying to sell us his Epicenter system. Another place that we used to get stereos from was mail order. Ooooh man did I love that Crutchfield catalog. I would look at that thing forever trying to figure out how to get the most bass for my dollar. I ended up getting a 600watt amp from crutchfield, bought a 10 inch bazooka from one of my classmates, bought a Soundstream amp from somewhere up near my grandma's house in Kaneohe, and ran that to my mids and highs. It was epic. Well epic to a broke high schooler anyway. There were a lot of things that I wish I could have upgraded to if I did have the money, and one of those was a Nakamichi deck. Nakamichi was that elusive brand that seemed to have been the pinnacle of sound quality back then. CDs had just come out, and everyone was hyped about cds and how you didn't have to stop music for twenty seconds while you rewinded that DJ Magic Mike tape back to the beginning. Ahhhh CD shufflers, those things were so awesome, too. I wonder if they still make those. That was pretty genius. So back to Nakamichi. It was a blast from the past when I was browsing records at Disc Union in Shibuya, and then came across some Nakamichi earphones. Could it be? I had to buy it just for nostalgia's sake. Man, I haven't been this happy about a useless purchase since that time I bought a 10 yard fight NES cartridge last October. Oh yeah, I don't have an NES. But 10 yard fight was a game that I played for hours and hours back in 8th grade. That and Rad Racer. For nostalgia's sake. Nothing wrong with that. There were two types of earphones: the MV5 and MV7. The MV7 had 10mm drivers, so it was a no brainer. Bigger is always better as they always say. I don't know who "they" are, but "they" always say that. So far I like them. They aren't the best sounding earphones, but they are Nakamichi earphones. Oh yeah, they were 40bucks. Pretty cheap as far as earphones go. They also have a L-shaped jack, so hopefully the wire won't get worn out as quick near the jack. I also like that it has the flat type of wire, so that it doesn't tangle and kink. Man, I can't stand those apple earphones. How can apple put out that junk. It's like a bad joke that they give you that with the iphones.

Growing up, I was always a big breakfast eater, even when I had little time (which was often the case). I would never skip breakfast, whether it was a bowl of rice with whatever we had from the previous supper, or an occasional piece of toast or two, . What I never had, though, was breakfast cereals. Cornflakes and Rice Krispies were never really part of my diet, breakfast or otherwise.

It would be a very major mistake, Gentle Reader, to assume that the Ukai tofu restaurant nearby Tokyo Tower was ... well, a tofu restaurant. Because it is that, yet oh so much more. A refuge, an oasis, a quiet corner in this clattering city, a joy to enter and a savage anti-climax to leave. Its beautiful gardens are soothing and consoling, and the individual room layout always mean you and your guests get to concentrate on one another rather than the cacophony of the chattering classes.Your Humble Correspondent is - obviously - quite taken with Ukai. One's week is not complete without manufacturing a reason to take in its serenity, beautifully accented by a course of washoku dishes that satisfy and transform a meal into an experience.A note: Ukai - though quite good - is certainly not the height of Japanese cuisine, and one shouldn't be looking for the "best in Tokyo" in each of the courses. That said, Gentle Reader, there is no better place within walking distance of Your Humble Correspondent's daytime penitentiary to ... well, "zen" out.The service is exemplary, discreet and individual. From the moment one arrives to the sad farewell, Ukai offers a reasonable (Y5,000), unique and fulfilling experience at visceral contrast with most other destinations. Very little indeed is difficult, and language is not an issue.The Take course is the best option, with an appropriate balance of the number of courses with a sensible volume. It will start with a seasonal vegetable, and then launches immediately into the meibutsu dry-fried agedofu with freshly-chopped negi and a sweet miso sauce. Ukai calls this delight age-dentaku ... Your Humble Correspondent prefers "manna".Next is the tsukuri, or seasonal sashimi, followed by the hassun (which actually refers to the size of the dish at 8 sun or 24cm). One moves on leisurely to Ukai's famous tofu soup, followed by the shokuji or rice dish signifying the end of the meal. Except for a delicate wagashi (Japanese sweet) and tea.While reluctant to offer anything resembling advice, Your Humble Correspondent suggests you add this venue to your list of haunts. Your friends will thank you, and you'll really feel much better about the world afterwards.Visit Ukai alone, with impressible clients, or with your superiors. And the shape-chaging tanuki-like denizen ... well, don't mind me! The Japanese website is utterly better than the English one ... Pip! Pip!Ukai: 4-4-13 Shiba-Koen, Minato-ku, Tokyo t:03-3436-1028Rating: Food: 7/10; Everyday-ness: 7/10; Service: 7/10; Ambiance: 7/10; Price-Performance: 7/10. Total: 36550 (3 Forks)