Thanksgiving (Sort of)

By coincidence, on Thanksgiving the family had a huge meal with about 6 guests over. We were 14 people...perfect Thanksgiving size. No turkey or mashed potatoes, but instead we had a major nabe meal. Nabe is great. I want to buy one in America. It's a big hot pot of lightly flavored broth that you use to cooking anything you want, right at the table. Plates full of shrimp, oysters, scallops, fish, chicken, beef, veggies, and tofu went in bit by bit until we were all stuffed. Each bit of food was dunked into a variety of dressings. Soy sauce, a creamy sesame dressing, and raw egg was provided. Afterwards we used the broth in the nabe to make a soup. It's such a great community feeling to eat out of this giant hotpot. The family has done the same thing with beef and veggies on a hot plate in the middle of the table. I love the idea and will be bringing back to America.

Thanksgiving Spread

"Carving the Turkey"

Thanks Mom! For some reason the cakes mailed across the Pacific tasted the best.

"Doumo Arigatou!" From the guests

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Assault of the Shellfish

I have to repeat the fact that my host family is ridiculous. I think I had the fortune of getting placed with the most eccentric family possible and I'm loving every minute of it. It's such a nice surprise when you get home at 5:30 and at 6:00 you get the surprise "Yuugohan...saki ni ikkou!" an hour before you expect to eat. That usually means there is some ridiculous meal in store for you at some restaurant. The best part is the amusement the family gets when the gaijin downs some strange type of animal part, smiles, and says "oishii" (delicious). In the twenty years they have been hosting internationals, I'm the only one that likes raw eggs, uni, and natto. Host father cant believe the only thing I don't like is Mayo.

We went to a sushi restaurant that is famous for its crab and shellfish. Crabs are brought in live everyday and cooked on the spot...whole. King Crab legs...no way, we get the whole sucker. All of the crab was caught off the coast of Hokkaido, which makes sense because thats relatively close to Alaska for all you "Dangerous Catch" watchers. On top of a King Crab and some other smaller crab, we also got shrimp, uni, and a sashimi platter. The sashimi platter was kind of dull, this looked like a sushi-ya on the outside but really was a shellfish restaurant. The shrimp were the best I ever had. They were melt in your mouth good and since they had the heads on I was instructed to make sure to suck out all the brains and organs which I gladly did. They tasted briny, different, but delicious. Japanese people love shellfish organs. THe "miso" or brain of the crab was divided up. THe second to last picture is my portion of the crab brain. It had the same flavor as the shrimp. For an American, it was definitely an odd flavor, but I can see how the Japanese love it. I'll probably grow used to it in time. The shellfish was served with a mixture of rice wine vinegar, mirin, and sugar. (see background of first picture) Uni was probably the only thing that did not come into the restaurant still kicking but everything else absoultely was. Tremendous seafood meal that proves that you don't need to serve everything with butter to taste good.

Random Food for Thought

None of this is from a particular day or event. Just some cool stuff I've run into.


This beauty is a grated white yam that was part of breakfast at Yamanako-ko. It is grated raw and used more for its texture and temperature than flavor. Host father suggested putting your rice/barley mixture in here. Because its semi-liquid, its hard to eat alone. The texture is described as "neba-neba." Anything that leaves strings when you lift it up qualifies as "neba-neba." Natto, konbu, raw egg, and this yam are all neba-neba.
Also at Yamanako-ko, we stopped for afternoon tea in the music box museum. This is the most interesting way I've seen tea served. It was a good, very good, black tea served inside a glass teapot with fruit. The fruit was steeping as long as tea and sweetened it, but not too much. After the tea, you got plates of fresh whipped cream for the warmed fruit.
Tomato booze at Yokohama. Souchou is the distilled spirit of choice in Japan, ranging from 20-40% ABV. Usually its made from grain or potatoes. Sweet potato is also popular. This is the first time I saw tomato.
Black tsukemono beans purchased at Yamanako-ko. They are about an inch long. Never saw anything like it.


The family doesn't have an oven. It's more of a giant microwave. Very few families have ovens as we know it. What they do have, however, located under the gas range, is a mini-salamander. This is what they use to grill fish, chicken wings, you name it. The thing kicks too. Its not much different than the ones in restaurants, just smaller. I wish they would design this for American ranges. You can see the sanma in this one from a few weeks ago.

Eggs

The eggs in Japan are magical. I don't think it is the product itself, but how the Japanese cook them. Judging by how a raw egg comes out of its shell (and into my waiting rice bowl) I don't think they are any better or fresher than a supermarket egg in the USA. A farmstand egg if given a chance probably will blow a Japanese egg away. I wrote about the hanjuku preparation before of the onsen-tamago and even the cafeteria egg, with a slightly cooked white and reasonably firm yolk. These are the eggs they put on hamburgers and serve as a side with a little yuzu and soy sauce. I think today I realized there is an even better way to cook an egg.

This preparation is called ni-tamago. It's the egg you saw in my ramen bowl in a previous post. I didn't realize it then, maybe because I was too exited about eating my first bowl of noodles in Japan, but the ni-tamago is king in that bowl of ramen, or bowl of anything. A ni-tamago has a fully cooked white but a barely cooked yolk. The yolk is mushy and even runny, kind of the opposite of onsen-tamago. Also, the egg is cool, probably a few degrees below room temperature but the time the bowl gets to you. The outside is slightly brown and tastes like a sweet soy sauce marinade was applied. Taste and texture (again, Japanese and texture) together, cool, sweet, tongue-covering egg in a bowl of hot, steaming ramen was new sensation that was unbelieveably good. Too bad you only get two halves of egg. I tried to solve the problem by cutting the egg in quarters to double my fun. A few nights ago I had a ni-tamago in a bowl of eggplant, pumpkin, and mushroom curry soup. The cool egg with the hot and spicy curry was even better than with the ramen. This curry was outstanding, halves of japanese eggplant roasted very tender with the skins scored. This served two purposes; make the eggplant easier to eat and helped catch the curried broth. There where two hunks, yes, hunks, of mushrooms. Like still on the stalk. Maiitake and Honshimeiji. They were so strongly flavored that they were able to hold up to the spiciness of the curry. Here is a recipe I found for ni-tamago.

Subway

Woah...Never would see this choice in the USA. Unfortunately there are no 500yen 30cm subs.
Yes, there is a Mushroom and Meatball sub. Yes, you do get real honshimeiji mushrooms with your sub.
Can I have a 15cm shrimp and avocado on honey oat please? Don't forget the mayo.

I don't know what Cheese-Roasted Chicken is but it sounds a bit like Chicken-Fried Steak and just as scary.

Also the Herb Dog is questionable

Food for Thought

I go to a college. There are cafeterias. So how does a Japanese university cafeteria compare...

As a note, I eat here when I have a 40 minute lunch break, otherwise its always out because the cafeteria is good, but not goooood.


There are two floors, each with about 10 main offerings and 5 side dishes. Food is Japanese, or japanese take on American stuff. There are various udon bowls, chazuke (rice with green tea and some other stuff), a certain type of fish, sanma, is seasonal right now and you can get your chazuke with sanma meatballs or even a whole broiled sanma for yourself. There is terryaki chicken with mayo (the japanese thing to do). Fried pork cutlet curry (very japanese). Hamburgers are popular but don't come with buns. Hamburgers in Japan come with spaghetti and a soft-boiled egg and soy sauce. I gotta try the egg on an american style burger. Eggs are so awesome here. Side dishes range from western salad, to a half-boiled egg, roasted squash or sweet potato, various tofu preparations, etc. You can feed yourself pretty well for around five dollars. Tea is self serve in the dining area. This tea out of a vending machine is better than any green tea I've had in America outsie of a Japanese restuarant. Quite amazing. I've said it before, but want to reinforce that GREEN tea here is GREEN. It's not supposed to be oxidized like English teas. It should taste green and vegatative. Everything I've had blew Lafayette's cafeteria away. So long as you stay away from the curry rice and fried pork cutlet, it doesn't leave you feeling gross when you walk away. Here are some picks of sweet potato, chilled half-boiled egg, and the soup with sanma meatballs.

Few items of note

1. Grapes-My host family loves grapes. They buy them by the case and we eat them with every meal. 2 kinds, big red globe grapes and ordinary looking green ones. Semi-seedless. Both kinds blow our grapes away. Our grapes taste like water. These taste like grapes and if you are lucky, wine. The skin is a bit thicker and my family sucks the grapes out of the skin but I munch on the whole thing because the skin has good flavor on the red ones. The middles slide out of the skin like jelly. They are clear and cool and taste like fruit.

2. Mushrooms (shitake) Best ever found in ordinary supermarket. Everything a mushroom should be. Japanese came up with "umami" and no surprise what are ordinary cooking mushrooms embody the umami goodness that should be in every mushroom.

3. Tako (octopus). Host mother bought an octupus leg for sashimi. (I got to slice it!) It was so delicious that I think it came off of the octupus right there in the market. It was slightly salty on its own and just needed a dab of soy sauce and wasabi. Octopus in america is more a textural affair, for better or for worse, unless it is seasoned, but it had actual flavor on its own tonight. It tasted eerily like a roasted pork chop. Meaty, tender, little salty, but had a slight crunch at the end since it is a mollusk.