Archive for the 'Food' Category

More Yahoo! Dome Action

Published
on February 22, 2008
in Food, Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 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

Published
on February 21, 2008
in Food
. 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

Published
on February 20, 2008
in Food
. 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

Published
on February 20, 2008
in Food
. 12 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

Published
on February 8, 2008
in Food and Videos
. 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)

Published
on February 4, 2008
in Food, Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 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.

YouTube Preview Image

Good stuff.

Japanese Commercial: Pizza LA

Published
on January 25, 2008
in Food and Videos
. 5 Comments

Pizza in Japan is usually quite a bit different from the American version. Here they put some crazy things on pizza like shrimp, squid, tuna, mayonnaise, sesame seeds, teriyaki chicken, corn, potatoes, and sometimes mustard. Oh yeah and sausage. Not the sausage you might be thinking, but more like the Super Bowl Sunday little smokies. Also the prices can get insane. A pizza for two people can easily cost around $25 USD. At least you don’t have to tip the delivery person which is a plus. Here’s a menu from Pizza LA. So far I’ve found pizza most like the ones you can get in the U.S. at Costco and Dominos. Costco doesn’t deliver and they are located about 1 million miles from me.
Here’s a Pizza LA Commercial

Continue reading ‘Japanese Commercial: Pizza LA’

The $20,000 Japanese Coffee Maker

Published
on January 24, 2008
in Food and What the...?
. 7 Comments

Out with the cheap coffee maker, in with the …. WHAT WHAT!? I just read this article at the New York Times website and had to share. The Japanese siphon coffee maker at the Blue Bottle Café in San Francisco was imported from Japan and cost more than $20,000 USD (That’s 2,130,399 Yen at the time of this post. See the conversion at Yahoo). It’s halogen-powered and looks like a chemistry set. That’s a ton of cash for the Japanese coffee maker. Are they serious about coffee? I’m going with “Yes” but are they a bit crazy about coffee? I’m going with “Yes” on that one too. Hmmm, I wonder if that cost included the shipping as well.

Ready for some pictures? Click the picture to see the slide show of images at the New York Times showing the step-by-step process of how coffee is made using the siphon bar.

Japanese Coffee Maker Siphon Style

And an awesome quote from the article:

“The whirlpool, it messes with your mind,” said Mr. Freeman, who practiced stirring plain water for months to develop muscle memory before he brewed his first cup of siphon coffee. “There’s no way to rush it.”

Here’s another interesting quote:

“Siphon coffee is very delicate,” he said. “It’s sweeter and juicier, and the flavors change as the temperature changes. Sometimes it has a texture so light it’s almost moussey.”

Here’s an informational siphon coffee machine video I found on youtube which you might find interesting.

YouTube Preview Image

Continue reading ‘The $20,000 Japanese Coffee Maker’

Cost of Alcohol in Japan

Published
on January 21, 2008
in Cost of Living, Food, Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 11 Comments

A lot of people wonder about the cost of living in Japan. Sure there’s living expenses, transportation, food, etc., but last weekend I decided to do some research on the cost of alcohol so you can compare it to your local store. There’s a law in Japan that makes people list their prices with tax included. Alcohol laws can be different in the U.S., so I’m not sure if the tax law applies to alcohol but I’m assuming so (I don’t have my receipt handy).

Almost all bottles listed are 750ml. Ones that are 700ml will be compared to the USD 750ml price. I’ll show you the actual price of alcohol in Yen from a liquor store in Japan and I’ll also list the estimated price in U.S. Dollars from what you’d find in a U.S. liquor store. From my extensive research I feel the Yen price is accurate and it’s what you’ll find at most stores. Ok, no more blah blah blah. Let’s get our drink on!

Grey Goose Vodka in Japan Grey Goose Vodka (750ml)
http://www.greygoosevodka.com/
Cost in Japanese Yen: 3200 (comparable)
Estimated U.S. Dollars: $35
Absolut Vodka in Japan Absolut Vodka (750ml)
http://www.absolut.com/
Cost in Yen: 1190 (cheaper!)
Estimated USD: $23

** Absolut Vodka Flavored
** (Citron, Melon, etc)
** Cost in Yen: 2289 (comparable)
** Estimated USD: $23

Skyy Vodka in Japan SKYY Vodka (750ml)
http://www.skyy.com/
Cost in Yen: 1187 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $18
Tanqueray Gin in Japan Tanqueray (750ml)
http://www.tanqueray.com/
Cost in Yen: 1391 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $21
Bombay Sapphire Gin in Japan Bombay Sapphire (750ml)
http://www.bombaysapphire.com/
Cost in Yen: 1490 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $25
Crown Royal in Japan Crown Royal (750ml)
http://www.crownroyal.com/
Cost in Yen: 1932 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $27
Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum in Japan Captain Morgan Spiced Rum (750ml)
http://www.captainmorgan.com/
Cost in Yen: 1180 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $20
Jagermeister in Japan Jägermeister (700ml)
http://www.jagermeister.com/
Cost in Yen: 1660 (comparable)
Estimated USD: $18
Baileys in Japan Baileys (750ml)
http://www.baileys.com/
Cost in Yen: 1300 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $23
Jack Daniel's in Japan Jack Daniel’s (700ml)
http://www.jackdaniels.com/
Cost in Yen: 1980 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $24
Jameson Whiskey in Japan Jameson Whiskey (700ml)
http://www.jamesonwhiskey.com/
Cost in Yen: 1850 (cheaper)
Estimated USD: $26

As you can see, most hard liquor is cheaper in Japan vs the U.S. (20-50% cheaper). Some strange things I’ve noticed is that certain brands only carry 700ml compared to the U.S. version of 750ml. Also some brands that have a variety of flavors, like Absolut, charge more for the flavored bottles. I’d prefer a nice Absolut Mandarin with some Orange Juice but hey for 1100 Yen (about $10) price difference I’ll stick to the non flavored variety.

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Homemade Japanese Bento

Published
on January 19, 2008
in Food
. 3 Comments

Why do I love my fiancee? There are over a million reasons of course, but one of those million reasons is Bento! Here’s a recent photo of the bento box lunch she made for me during a surprise picnic. She does this on every snowboarding trip too. So many delicious items perfectly placed in their own individual area. Who does that? It’s pure excellence.

Japanese Bento Box Lunch