Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

Let me start with a corny haiku I wrote a long time ago for ramen.

I cuddle your warmth
And savour your essence
You flow lovingly

That was the first, and last, haiku I have ever written. I’ve never fancied myself a poet – let’s face it – there is no talent in that department. In fact, I didn’t even get the number of syllables right for a proper haiku. But that’s not what’s important. What is important here is I am about to tell about all the ramen we ate in Japan.

(A lunch deal we couldn’t resist in Asakusa, Tokyo)

Hungry, cold and slightly lost while trying to find Sensoji (Yes, the big huge temple you couldn’t possibly miss. Yes, we did miss it), we stumbled upon a sign that read… well we don’t know what it read. All we saw was a picture of a ramen and a fried rice. Who were we to tempt fate.

(Negi ramen)

Josh had wanted the negi ramen – with shoyu base soup and finely sliced Japanese leek. Delicious. Read the rest of this entry »

Previously on Food, Love & Tokyo (Part I), we had touched on yakitori, roast chicken, supermarket, ice cream, gyudon, soba and convenience store. I would like to dedicate this one to sushi lovers everywhere.

(Aburi sushi – sake, maguro and engawa)

We start with Midori Sushi – a well known sushi train restaurant in Shibuya for its quality but inexpensive sushi. We were warned of a queue out front (and there was) but luckily the queue moved fairly fast especially there were just the two of us. We started off with trio of aburi sushi which were fatty pieces of fish that had been quickly seared, presumably with a blow torch. I believe they were salmon (sake), yellow-fin tuna (maguro) and halibut (engawa).

Not too sure what these were.

A line of salmon nigiri flying past and honeydew melons. I have never seen honeydew on a sushi train line before. Read the rest of this entry »

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I think it’s about time I share you the rest of the photos from our honeymoon trip. Granted, it was a while ago but still better late than never (although my English teacher Mr Cadman used to say ‘better never late!’ – wait have I said that before?) Since I never got around to writing more individual posts about Japan, I will just split them into cities.

This one, and the next one, and possibly the one after that, will be all about Tokyo – my favourite Japanese city. Yes, they will be epic posts.

We’ll start off with some pictures from the small supermarket near our hotel.

Wagyu, baby!

Sashimi and seafood counter. Wow. Read the rest of this entry »

(Gyu No Chikara, Ueno, Tokyo)

We stumbled upon this place while walking around Ueno area in Tokyo. What drew us there was a TV that sat in front of the restaurant playing a program (in Japanese, of course) about how a good gyudon is made. It took us quite a while to realise that the program was about the gyudon shop that we were standing in front of.

Gyudon, in case you don’t know, literally means beef bowl. It is a all-in-one rice dish which is topped with beef and onions cooked in thin sauce concocted from soy sauce, dashi, mirin, etc. It’s one of my favourite Japanese dishes (I have a feeling I repeat myself a lot, don’t I?) so we decided, why not? And walked in.

(Original gyu-don – 800 yen?)

We were confronted by yet another vending machine and thankfully this time the vending machine had tiny little pictures in on each of the button. So we sort  of guessed our way (again!)

Josh settled for the plain gyudon. And I settled for a gyudon that looked like it had poached egg and saffron threads on it. We sat at the counter (this place was also counter- only) and was confronted by the usual array of chopsticks, tea cups, fresh garlic and pickled ginger. It seemed like one of the ways to eat gyudon is crushing fresh garlic into the rice (garlic crusher provided).

(My gyudon, with what I thought was chilli sauce but I wasn’t sure)

Our food arrived a few minuites later and oh. my. god. It was delicious! It was one of the two gyudon meals in Japan (another was at the chain Yoshinoya, which, while good, was nothing compared to Gyu No Chikara) . The meat was tender and the sauce was just perfect. I loved the poached eggs with gyudon. Our rice bowls were also accompanied by a little bowl of soup with colourful bits of some sort of fish sticks and seafood. We washed our meals down with free green tea.

(I stirred the poached egg through the rice, yummy!)

My dish seemed to have some sort of chilli sauce to it but it didn’t taste spicy. The red threads seemed like saffron thread but didn’t taste particularly saffron-ish. Frankly I really couldn’t tell what I ate! I preferred Josh’s plain gyudon but nonetheless each gyudon was perfect in its own way.

Oishii ne!

Gyu No Chikara, somewhere near JR Ueno station.

I love the Japanese omelet rice! Of course when we went past a little cafe in Harajuku that specialised in omuraisu, we could not not go in. From my hazy recollection, we were absolutely starving on the day so excuse me for quick, useless photos. I’m pretty sure my hands shook from hunger.

Naturally this was what drew us. The food models. I love Japan for their food models. So we walked down the tiny (seriously you don’t know tiny until you go to Tokyo, and I’m like 5′ 0″) stairwell to a little cafe full of Japanese teenagers. You know, the usual Harajuku crowd. God I love Tokyo!

We were presented with the menu with, thankfully, had pictures on them. I decided on the brown sauce looking one (E). No idea what it was. I kinda thought it was gravy/brown sauce type thing, which I was led to believe to be one of the popular omuraisu toppings.

(Omuraisu with beef and red wine stew – 850 yen)

But I was wrong (naturally). I was correct that it was the standard omuraisu but the brown sauce wasn’t gravy at all. It was beef and red wine stew. I can’t say there was a lot of beef in it (compared to the plastic model). While it was all right, I wasn’t (still am not) a fan of anything red wine-y taste in food. The rice was well made with tomato sauce flavour. The omelet was lovely and soft as it should be.

(my meal – the plastic version)

Josh ordered what we presumed to be the takoyaki omuraisu. I mean, think about it! Takoyaki in your omelet rice. How cool is that?

(Takoyaki omuraisu – 850 yen)

I think Josh won this one. It was absolutely yummy. It was served topped with takoyaki sauce, mayonnaise, seaweed and of course, the beautifully dancing bonito shaving. The most surprising thing was the rice inside the omelet. It had actual tako pieces alongside the usual takoyaki ingredients like ginger, spring onion and cabbage. It was very yummy. Definitely recommended.

(Josh’s meal – the plastic version)

So if you’re ever around there, I strongly recommend it.

Apple Tree, somewhere in Harajuku. I honestly can’t remember where it is. It’s not very far from JR Harajuku though.

PS. I’m so making omuraisu this week! I miss Japan.