Archive for the 'Food' Category

500 ML Coke for 100 Yen

Posted
on April 27, 2008
 in Cost of Living and Food
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7 Comments

I was craving a bubbly soda and I’ve hit the jackpot! I’ve seen soda in the (estimated) 16oz/500ml plastic bottles just like the U.S. but they run about 150 yen. A while ago I went from convenience store to convenience store to see what the different stores offered and I found a 500ml can of Coca Cola at the Daily Yamazaki for just 100 Yen!

I’d say it’s smaller than this huge Coke I saw at a crepes store. And it’s only 47 yen more than the 160ml can of Coke I found at Sunny (a grocery store chain).

First of all before your journey you’ll need 100 Yen. That’s right, tax is already included in the price!

100 Japanese Yen

 Next, you’ll need to find a Daily Yamazaki convenience store. It looks like this (I got the picture from Wikipedia)

Daily Yamazaki

And here are some pictures of the beast of a drink!

500ml Can of Coca Cola Top in Japanese

500ml Can of Coca Cola in Japan

500ml Can of Coca Cola in Japanese

For the ultimate cheap snack I recommend this 100 Yen Coke and the 105 Yen Tiramisu. Both combined are cheaper than the Ishiyaki Imo from the back of the traveling guy’s truck.

A Cheap Snack

Posted
on April 20, 2008
 in Food
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10 Comments

If you’re ever in Japan and you’re craving something cold, sweet, and cheap I highly recommend the Tiramisu which you can find at Family Mart. This inexpensive Tiramisu is made with one layer of chocolate cake, one layer of vanilla pudding, and coffee + cocoa sprinkled on top.

The price… 105 Yen.
The satisfaction… 80%

It seems to have more pudding and fluffier cake than the 300 Yen Tiramisu’s at 7-11, but it’s nice because it’s light, sweet, and delicious.  I took some pictures so you can see it in action!

This what 105 Yen looks like. This is all you need to get this party started. Reminds me of a quarter and a big penny with a hole in it.

105 Japanese Yen

And this is what a Family Mart looks like (picture taken from Wikipedia)

A picture of Family Mart I took from Wikipedia

And this is the Tiramisu. The conbini clerks also give you tools to conquer your quests. Today’s weapon of choice is a tiny tiny spoon.

Tiramisu from Family Mart in Japan

As I open the container I see it has Japanese writing on each side. I can’t read it so I assume it says “Tastes great! Only 105 Yen hellz yeah! Fat free and calorie free, just like the State Fair food you eat once a year back home! You should try to put it on a stick and deep fry it some day. Enjoy! / 140ml”

Japanese writing all over my Tiramisu

And here it is in the final stage of life. It took 2 minutes to devour with the tiny spoon. I like the spoon… it forces me to slow down and enjoy things.

Eating some cheap Tiramisu

9 Pounds of Oatmeal

Posted
on March 9, 2008
 in Every Day Life and Food
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6 Comments

When we first moved to Fukuoka we stopped by Costco with some friends. One of the items I bought was 9 pounds (4.08 kg) of Quaker Oats which I eat for breakfast a lot. I ran out this week but luckily we went to Costco a few weeks ago and I grabbed another box. Sure you can buy these online at a few places in Japan but it costs an additional 500-700 Yen for the box. Buying direct from Costco costs around 1200 Yen for this box. Anyway, it’s huge. The box is huge, the amount of Oatmeal is insane, and I say this because I’m more adjusted to smaller things and less quantity. I thought I’d share some pictures so you can see what it’s like.

Here are the directions. As you can see there are instructions for food service preparation and the two bags come to a combined total of 102 servings.

Oatmeal Directions

Here’s the box with the 2 bags of Oatmeal that was inside.

Two bags of oatmeal - YUM!

Here’s are some details.

9 pounds of oatmeal - WHOA!

This is after I filled up my small container that lasts about 2 months. Now I’m good to go!

It’s now good to go

Starbucks in Japan

Posted
on March 5, 2008
 in Food and Living in Japan
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10 Comments

Yeah… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not but I’m 15 minutes away from 6 Starbucks Coffee shops here in Fukuoka. Now that’s going north, south, and east. I haven’t checked west yet…. there’s probably 3 more that way somewhere. One of the Starbucks is across the street from another Starbucks and about 3 blocks or so from another one down the side street.

So here we are… going into the Starbucks that’s inside Tsutaya.

Starbucks in Fukuoka Japan at Tsutaya

For the record… Tsutaya is pretty sweet. It’s 6 stories and you can rent DVDs, CDs, buy them, get books and magazines, and enjoy some Starbucks. The DVD releases that have been out for a while usually run on a special that’s 4 DVDs for 1000 Yen. I’d say about $9-10 US.

Here’s kind of a cool photo

Starbucks in Japan

And here’s a picture I took from Starbucks of Starbucks across the street while enjoying some coffee with some friends.

Starbucks in Japan

By having so many Starbucks so close to me I’d have to say

  1. It’s kind of crazy in my opinion
  2. They are is busy and the city is big
  3. I love it!

Continue reading ‘Starbucks in Japan’

More Yahoo! Dome Action

Posted
on February 22, 2008
 in Food and Living in Japan
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6 Comments

I forgot to include this picture so here you go! What’s interesting is right when we entered the Yahoo! Dome there was a cell phone company giving us king size snacks that taste like Cheetos. And there’s a snack bar, just like any other baseball stadium, but instead of beer, brats, and burgers they sell beer, yaki soba, takoyaki, and ramen. The prices were about the same. I just can’t imagine watching a game in the stands while slurping on some ramen using chopsticks while drinking beer. In that scenario there’s just too much going on. Of course I say this now, but just wait… in a year I’ll be doing it.

Snack Time at the Yahoo Dome

Shochu Fair at the Yahoo! Dome

Posted
on February 21, 2008
 in Food
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10 Comments

How do you get your drink on for only 300 Yen? Easy, hit up the shochu fair at the Yahoo! Dome here in Fukuoka! We went to the shochu fair the other Saturday (Feb 9th) and it was pretty sweet. This was our first visit to Yahoo! Dome (home of the Softbank Hawks), here’s a picture of my fiancee, Mai, at the top of the stairs.

Yahoo Dome in Fukuoka

First of all, what is shochu? It’s a distilled drink and I’ve seen 20%, 25%, and 40% strength with most of them being 20-25%. There are over 20 varieties and the most popular main ingredients are potato, rice, or barley. How does it taste? I’d say it tastes similar to sake but less fruity, it has a bite, and the 40% tastes like whiskey. If I were to create shochu from existing drinks I’d take sake, remove the fruity flavor and smoothness, then I’d take Gin and remove the pine tree flavor, and mix them. If you want to know more, here’s a wikipedia link. Shochu ranges in price and you can get a good brand for 900 Yen or up. If you missed missed my liquor price check post, check out my alcohol prices in Japan.

All, or almost all, of the Kyushu Island shochu distilleries were present at this fair. It was 300 Yen in advance, 500 at the door, and you got sample as many different types of shochu and plum wine as you wanted. Each taste is about one shot or half of a shot so you definitely had to pace yourself and luckily it appeared that everybody was doing just that. Also they made you get a bracelet showing that you’re not driving home before you started your shochu adventure. The guys handing out the 40% shochu were giving me about 1-2 shots worth every time! I ask for a little, then that’s 1 shot, it was crazy.

Shochu Fukuoka Fair

POTATOES HOOOOOOOO! That’s right, rollin VIP in the JP yo. We visited one of the booths from Kagoshima to enjoy a tasty sample of their sweet potato shochu. The people at the booth and Mai got to talking about Kagoshima and their shochu. The company is one Mai’s friends favorites back in the U.S. so we bought two small bottles for 500 yen as a gift which were connected nicely in twine. As an added bonus they gave us a big bag of sweet potatoes to go along with it! How awesome is that? Word on the street is that Kagoshima is famous for sweet potatoes. I have yet to eat a sweet potato while drinking shochu made from potatoes, but it’s on my list of things to do. The second part of our VIP status happened when we were at a booth who insisted on giving me a double shot of the strong whiskey type of shochu which was 45%. And then they gave us two small bottles for free. That was surprising and very cool of them. He kept saying “It’s good, it’s good!” and I kept thinking “It tastes like ass! It tastes like ass!” but I got to enjoy some last week and he’s right, it’s good. *Note: Sweet potato shochu is not sweet.

Kagoshima Shochu made from Sweet Potatoes

Here are more pictures from the shochu fair. First I want to start with my favorite ones. The first one is Mai puring some shochu from a barrel

Pouring some shochu

Fans of MXC will appreciate this one! Hideo Higashikokubaru is now governor of Miyazaki Prefecture.
MXC Hideo Higashikokubaru

Here’s a tasty snack. It tastes ok.
A tasty snack

Huge Mario and other games for the kids.
Fun and Games and Huge Mario

And now here are the rest of the pictures I took. After the Yahoo! Dome we headed over to Hawks’ Town and I’ll post about that in the next few days.
Continue reading ‘Shochu Fair at the Yahoo! Dome’

Kani Nabe Action

Posted
on February 20, 2008
 in Food
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5 Comments

I had some nabe (pronounced: naw-bay) the other night and it was the bomb! I’m going to throw in some terminology with pronunciation on this Japan it UP! entry. This tasty dish is a soup or stew that’s served in a clay pot because it stays warm after the flame is turned off. You can make nabe for two but we usually eat it with friends and everybody grabs frood from the same pot.

Kani Nabe

 This time our nabe was filled with a soup, udon noodles, carrots, cabbage, crab legs aka ‘kani’ (pronounced: Connie), and some sausages. I think the sausages give it a western style taste and this time we used cabbage instead of “hakusai” (pronounced: hawk-sai, or hawkseye) which is Chinese cabbage. We cooked it on a burner right on the living room table. The table is called a kotatsu (pronounced koh-ta-tsu). A kotatsu is  a table used mostly in Japan and is a wooden table covered by a heavy blanket with a built in heater underneath to keep you warm. Great for warm winters! Bad for people with dust allergies. I’ve never had it before coming to Japan but here they have nabe restaurants which are very affordable. If you get the chance you should enjoy some nabe with a group of friends. Maybe there are some restaurants in your country that offer nabe, but it might take some investigating to find them.

Strange Size Soft Drink

Posted
on February 20, 2008
 in Food
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11 Comments

You might remember my post about the tiny Japanese Coca Cola, well I guess I’d call this one a huge size here in Japan. Mai (my fiancee) and I were eating at a crepes shop a few days back and we noticed this display with a different looking large size container. It’s about the size of a 32oz in the U.S. (or 950ml?) but here it’s shaped as a half cup + half milk carton monster with a hole for a long straw. I’ve never seen anything like this before, and Mai said this is the first time she’s seen this in Japan so it’s not the ‘norm’

Huge looking Coca Cola in Japan

With all the tiny cute coffees around I wonder if my eyes are deceiving me and it is actually a 24oz cup. I guess I’ll never know unless I buy one, bring it home, and measure it which probably won’t be happening.

Japanese Commercial: McDonald’s Cheeseburger

Posted
on February 8, 2008
 in Food and Videos
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6 Comments

I eat at McDonald’s every now and then here in Japan. I was really impressed with the quality of service and how the food looks when you eat you it. I was also shocked by the smallest soft drinks in the world. It’s probably an 8oz cup filled to the top with ice. What does that mean? Probably 4-5oz of Coke. Here are some other things I feel about the McDs in Japan vs. America and a commercial I found on Youtube… Yes, the restaurant looks like this. Yes, McDonald’s cheeseburgers look like this (to me). Yes, you are happier when you eat McDonald’s in Japan vs the U.S. and yes, you are hungry 2 hours later just like in the U.S.

Speaking of McDonald’s, their profit grew five-fold according to The Japan Times

McDonald’s Holdings Co. (Japan) Ltd. said Thursday its consolidated net profit in 2007 was five times higher than in the previous year, totaling Â¥7.82 billion on record high sales of Â¥395.06 billion, up 11.1 percent.

I find that pretty interesting.

Ishiyaki Imo Truck (baked sweet potato)

Posted
on February 4, 2008
 in Food and Living in Japan
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2 Comments

Every now and then I hear this guy singing a cool little tune at night. No music, just him singing a melody. I asked my fiancee what it is and she told me it’s a truck that sells ishiyaki imo (sweet potatoes). How awesome is that? I would never think “Hey, I could really go for a sweet potato” … until NOW! For a while I’ve been on a mission: run like an Olympic sprinter, catch this guy, enjoy the full ‘Japanese sweet potato out of a truck’ experience. The result? I’ve eaten one of these once, and I’ve seen the truck twice, and I have a picture!

What does Ishiyaki Imo mean? I asked this very same question and here’s the answer broken down. Ishi = stone, Yaki = grilled, Imo = sweet potato.

My Imagination: Now here’s what I was thinking about this truck before I saw it. I figured it was a pickup truck, some guy that cooks them on the back of his truck, and he sings his song out of a megaphone, he’s a happy guy that just loves giving out sweet potatoes late at night and apparently the job is fun and exciting. He drives fast because he wants to cover the entire city.

The Reality: Not quite what I was thinking. From my experience, an older guy drives either a truck or a van. He’s not singing, he’s playing a recording over a megaphone and this explaines why the song is perfect every time he drives by my place. He does drive slow, which means I’m just not running fast enough (time to hit the gym?). He has cooking gear on his truck but when I went all of the potatoes were ready to go. I spent 400 Yen ($3.75 at the time) for a big hot potato. And big as in huge, it looked like they gave me the biggest one in the sweet potato field. Good thing I was hungry!

The potato was hot and it I enjoyed it. Just eating a hot sweet potato is quite different from The Outback Steakhouse version back in the U.S. which is smothered in butter and cinnamon and maybe some sugar.

Here are a picture from the truck.

Ishiyaki Imo Truck

Here’s an Ishiyaki-Imo old school setup which I’ve never seen in person (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Ishiyaki Imo Vendor

Here’s a YouTube video I found. The song doesn’t have as nice of a melody as the truck Fukuoka, the truck is slow and not busy, but it’s cool to check out.

Good stuff.

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